Insight

China, India make massive strides to improve slums: UN report

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-05-13 11:12

According to the report, India has made strides it improve slums by providing security of tenure to poor families living in unauthorized settlements, improving their access to serviced low- cost housing and subsidized finance; and by encouraging the poor to take part in the decision making and community development efforts. "After these two countries, the most noteworthy improvements in Asian slum conditions were in Indonesia, Turkey and Vietnam," the report says.

Two-thirds of the world's slum-dwellers now live in Africa, the report found, the only continent to have made little progress in reducing slum numbers in the last decade.

Although North Africa made considerable progress reducing slum numbers, the 34 sub-Saharan African countries between them only improved the living conditions of 17 million slum-dwellers in the last decade.

These countries now have virtually 200 million people -- over 60 percent of their populations – living in slums. This proportion was only a slight improvement on 2000 figures.

Continual Chinese and Indian economic growth has radically reduced the numbers of people living in unacceptable housing in those countries but the most improved countries were Indonesia, Morocco and Argentina, which each reduced their slum populations by more than 40 percent.

In Africa, the report says, Morocco has moved 2.4 million out of slum conditions over the past 10 years, a 45.8 percent reduction in slum prevalence due to strong political leadership, clear targets and adequate budget resources.

It says Egypt reduced its proportion of slum dwellers by 39 percent; slum prevalence fell by 28.1 percent of the urban population in 2000 to some 17.1 percent in 2010.

"In absolute numbers, the government of Egypt improved the living conditions of five million people. Together, Morocco and Egypt account for two-thirds of progress in this Africa sub-region, " the report says.

Conflicts have increased the number of slum-dwellers by at least 10 percent in Central African Republic and Cote d'Ivoire. Elsewhere, countries like Ethiopia, Benin and Malawi now have more than 70 percent of their populations living in slums.

Southern Asia now has 190.7 million slum dwellers (35 percent of the population) and eastern Asia 189.6 million (28.2 percent).