press conference to launch un-habitat ‘state of the world’as cities 2006/7’ report

A groundbreaking new report released today by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) showed that the world’s 1 billion slum dwellers were more likely to die earlier, experience more hunger and disease, attain less education and have fewer chances of employment than urban dwellers not living in a slum, Anna Tibaijuka, Executive Director of the Nairobi-based UN-HABITAT, said this morning.

“Inequality in the cities has increased over time and is bound to increase both in scale and magnitude as more people move into cities and towns”, she said at a Headquarters press conference, where she was joined in presenting State of the World’s Cities Report 2006/7 by Eduardo Moreno, Chief of the agency’s Global Urban Observatory, and Sharad Shankardass, Spokesperson for UN-HABITAT.

The Executive Director said the report showed the existence of a new challenge, the “divided city”, in addition to the usual problem of urban/rural divide on which people usually focused.  And with the ever-increasing size of cities, urban sprawl was yet another challenge.  It was the sizeable number of humanity that was unable to find a reasonable existence in large cities that was likely to die, was hungry, and lived in squalor amid affluence.  That was also the population living on less than 10 per cent of the urban land, while the rest was kept for the affluent minority.

In a number of African cities, some 72 per cent of the urban population lived in slums, a number that was about 50 per cent in Asia and about 33 per cent in Latin America; the battle for the Millennium Development Goals would, therefore, be won or lost in the slums, she said, referring to the international development goals set by world leaders in 2000.  Goal 7 involves improving the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020, while the others include reducing poverty, expanding primary education, promoting gender equality and improving people’s access to basic services. 

The report, she added, would provide background material for the third session of the World Urban Forum, to be held in Vancouver, Canada, from 19 to 23 June.  Held every two years, the Forum is UN-HABITAT’s premier international meeting on the state of the world’s growing cities.

Highlighting some of the report’s findings, Mr. Moreno noted that, by 2007, the world’s urban population would exceed its rural population for the first time in history.  Also, 93 per cent of the total growth in the next 15 years would be in the developing countries -- the least equipped to deal with rapid urbanization.  By 2030, Africa’s urban population would be larger than the total population of Europe, while Asia alone would account for more than half the world’s urban population.  Urban poverty, which could be just as intense, dehumanizing and life-threatening as rural poverty, should be analysed along with rural poverty, he concluded.

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For information media • not an official record