The report shows remarkable similarities between slums and rural areas in health, education, employment and mortality. In countries such as Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Haiti and India, child malnutrition in slums is comparable to that of rural areas. For example, in Ethiopia, child malnutrition in slums and rural areas is 47 per cent and 49 per cent respectively, compared with 27 per cent in non-slum urban areas. In many Sub-Saharan African cities, children living in slums are more likely to die from water-borne and respiratory illnesses than rural children. Women living in slums are also more likely to contract HIV/AIDS than their rural counterparts. In most Sub-Saharan African countries, HIV prevalence is higher in urban areas than in rural areas; in Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia HIV prevalence among urban populations is almost twice that of rural populations. These differences in conditions between rural and urban areas are attributed to the poor living conditions in slums, which expose women and children to a variety of health hazards and force girls and women to engage in sexually risky behaviour.

The report also debunks some commonly-held beliefs about people living in slums. Contrary to popular perception, young adults living in slums are more likely to have a child, be married or head a household than their counterparts living in non-slum areas. In Uganda, for instance, 34 per cent of young men living in slums head a household compared with 5 per cent of young men living in non-slum urban areas. The report shows that, the share of women headed households is greater in urban areas except in Africa where more rural women head households.

The report comes at a time when the world is entering a historic urban transition - in 2007, for the first time in history, the world’s urban population will exceed the rural population. Most of the world’s urban growth – 95 per cent – in the next two decades will be absorbed by cities of the developing world, which are least equipped to deal with rapid urbanisation. The majority of migrants will be moving to small towns and cities of less than one million inhabitants. As cities grow, so do their slum populations. In many Sub-Saharan African cities, the slum population accounts for over 70 per cent of the urban population. Slums in Southern Asia, Western Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are growing as fast as the urban population in general.

Meeting the Millennium Development Goals
A global scorecard on slums developed by UN-HABITAT shows that countries such as Egypt, Thailand and Tunisia have not only managed to reduce slum growth in the last 15 years but have made considerable investments in improving slums. These countries developed either specific slum upgrading and prevention policies or have integrated slum upgrading and prevention as part of their broader poverty reduction policies and programmes.

The report notes that countries need not achieve significant milestones in economic growth before they tackle growing slum populations. Some low- or middle-income countries, including Brazil, Colombia, Philippines, Indonesia, South Africa and Sri Lanka, have managed to prevent slum formation by anticipating and planning for growing urban populations – by expanding economic and employment opportunities for the urban poor, by investing in low-cost, affordable housing for the most vulnerable groups and by instituting pro-poor reforms and policies that have had a positive impact on low-income people’s access to services.

What comes out clearly in this Report is that slum formation is neither inevitable nor acceptable. “Running the poor out of town” – through evictions or discriminatory practices – is not the answer: rather, helping the poor to become more integrated into the fabric of urban society is the only long-lasting and sustainable solution to the growing urbanisation of poverty. Ultimately, as the developing world becomes more urban and as the locus of poverty shifts to cities, the battle to achieve the Millennium Development Goals will have to be waged in the world’s slums.

For more information:

http://www.unhabitat.org/pmss/getPage.asp?page=bookView&book=2101