PRESS BRIEFING ON 2003 HUMAN SETTLEMENTS REPORT

PRESS BRIEFING ON 2003 HUMAN SETTLEMENTS REPORT

At least 1 billion people lived in slums, with the highest percentage of them found in Asia, Africa and Latin America, according to a new report by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) entitled, “The Challenge of Slums: Global Report on Human Settlements 2003”, to be issued on World Habitat Day, 6 October.

Speaking at a pre-launch press briefing at Headquarters this morning, UN-HABITAT Executive Director Anna K. Tibaijuka said that, according to the “flagship” report, at least 40 per cent of settlements in the world were classified as slums.  Joining her were Jeffrey D. Sachs, Special Adviser to Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals and Director of the Earth Institute, and Naison D. Mutizwa-Mangiza, Chief, Policy Analysis, Synthesis and Dialogue Branch, UN-HABITAT.

The Millennium Development Goals, Ms. Tibaijuka said, had recognized the problem of slums, and had sought to improve the living environment in cities and towns.  Seventy-one per cent of city-dwellers in sub-Saharan Africa lived in slums, and the figure was 40 per cent for Asia and 6 per cent for developed nations.  Slums were not inevitable, she noted, even though they existed.  The report, the first global assessment of slums, had attributed the formation of slums to, among other things, the rapid pace of rural-to-urban migration and the urbanization of Africa, Asia and Latin America. 

The report suggested, she added, that increased political will, investment in infrastructure, proactive urban planning and the empowerment of the urban poor were all ways of tackling the problem.  The deterioration of the living environment was not limited to the poorest countries, and the report’s recommendations were aimed at the entire world. 

Mr. Sachs said it was crucial that Member States not let the problem pass unnoticed and un-acted upon.  The question remained whether the United States or Europe, as major donors, would take the ideas contained in the report and assist poor countries to implement its recommendations.  While there was agreement on the need to alleviate poverty, that, as well as other Millennium Development Goals, would not be achieved in urban areas without much greater efforts from rich countries, working in partnership with the poorer ones.  According to him, there was “a lot of talk and not enough action”.

Continuing, he identified urbanization as one of the most powerful trends in the world today.  Evidence pointed to the fact that cities were the core of economic growth in the long term, which was promising from the aspect of determining how developing countries could grow and get integrated into the world economy.  He stressed that, while that was promising, the problem lay in the fact that people were not finding productive employment for income generation or having the necessary infrastructure. 

He noted that world leaders had 12 years to fulfil most of the Millennium Development Goals and 17 years to fulfil the goals regarding slums.  They were not on track to achieve those objectives, and would not get on track until they addressed the problems of poverty and global cooperation, which had already been achieved with other issues.  The real challenge lay in empowering communities, which involved mobilizing financial resources.  There were clever ways to get around the problem, such as the “Education for All” initiative and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis. 

Identifying the key findings of the report was Mr. Mutizwa-Mangiza, who said that Asia had about 550 million people living in slums, followed by Africa with 187 million, and Latin America and the Caribbean with 128 million.  While slums had disappeared in developed countries, the report still found that there were approximately 54 million urban dwellers in high-income countries living in slum-like conditions. 

Regarding the proportion of slum-dwellers in urban populations, the findings revealed that sub-Saharan Africa had the highest rate with 72 per cent, followed by South Central Asia with 59 per cent, East Asia with 36 per cent, Western Asia with 33 per cent, and Latin America and the Caribbean with

32 per cent.  The international community, he stressed, needed to do much more to improve the lives of slum-dwellers. 

* *** *