The Global Report on Human Settlements 2003 is about slums - the places where poor people struggle to make a living and bring up their families, and the places where about one third, of the world's urban population live. This report is, therefore, about poverty and housing and about poor housing policy.
Ever since there have been cities there have been poor quarters but only since the 16th century have there been slums, places that are 'squalid, overcrowded and wretched.  Slums have been the only large-scale solution to providing housing for low-income people. It is the only type of housing that is affordable and accessible to the poor in cities where the competition for land and profits is intense, and the places where they must live if they have little income or, no other options.
A few citations from the case studies prepared for this report provide striking highlights on the diversity of slums and the different ways in which they reflect global and local political and economic trends.¹

From historical times, industrialization in the city of Kolkata has attracted a cheap labour force from the rural hinterland who found accommodation in the low-cost settlements in the slums. Information shows that more than 41 per cent of households have lived in slums for more than 30 years. More than 70 per cent of the households have lived in slums for more than 15 years. About 16 per cent of the population have been living in slums for 6 to 15 years. New entrants in slums, with duration of stay of up to 5 years, constitute only 4 per cent of the sample surveyed. ²

Who lives in slums? A very rough estimate of the total slum population, compiled from existing data and estimates: reveals that in total there are around 300,000 slum dwellers in the 24 listed slums, that is over 20 per cent of the population of the capital city. Four groups (rural migrants, displaced persons, refugees and foreign workers) constitute the majority of these dwellers, all of them generally living in particularly precarious conditions (e.g. daily/unstable employment, illegal papers, etc).
These do not, however, constitute all those living in poverty in Beirut, neither do they constitute all those living in poor conditions in
this city, since many shacks are spread out all around Beirut and its suburbs, outside slums as well as inside them. ³

A woman from the neighbourhood (aged 35), born in the central part of Quito, married for 12 years (3 children, aged 11, 9 and 6), has been living at Corazon de Jesus for the last 10 years. Unemployed since she got married, domestic chores consume all her time. As her husband works as a carpenter on building sites, he is away from home/or several days or even weeks, and she has to rule the household and manage the family budget. She only studied until the third year of secondary school and has discarded the possibility of finishing her studies. However, she would like to receive some training or assistance to set up a productive business, in order to complement the family income. ⁴

About two-thirds of the population of Mexico City live in what might be called a slum: in owner-occupied or rented housing in irregular settlements at various stages of consolidation, in traditional vecindades, in pauperized public housing projects or in other types of minority dwellings on rooftops or in shacks on forgotten bits of land here and there. ⁵

Slums in Nairobi are homes to urban residents who earn comparatively low incomes and have limited assets. Livelihoods are earned through different forms of economic activities, which include: employment as waiters, barmen and barmaids, drivers, watchmen, shop assistants, casual labourers in factories and construction sites, artisans: small business owners: and other income-generating activities such as herbalists, entertainers and carriers of goods. ⁶

Walter Cordoba, 36 years old: from Poblacion La Hondonada, Santiago de Chile, says: 'People identify themselves with the area and commit themselves to the place but they have no aspirations, there is no way to show their children that there could be another way of living. The settlements in the surrounding areas are the worst: they are also poor and that has an impact on our children because they see the world as the settlements are, a world aggressive, with overcrowding, with drugs, all those things. '⁷

The favelas in Sao Paulo, unlike in Rio de Janeiro, are a recent phenomenon, less than 50 years old and whose current, sharp, growth dates back to 1980, with their share of the population having jumped from 5.2 per cent to 19.8 per cent since then. Their appearance is associated with peripheral patterns of urbanization for the working class and the impoverishment resulting from the end of uninterrupted economic growth since 1950. About 60 per cent of the population growth was absorbed by Sao Paulo's favelas.⁸

Slum areas are also a refuge for women who are fleeing difficult situations created by divorce or marital disputes. This is the case for Jeanne: 'I was married to a young man from my region. After six children, he decided that we would not have any more. I accepted this. Without me knowing, he then started having a relationship with another woman, who became pregnant. I discovered this and we quarreled.  I left my children to escape the hatred of my in-laws. I came to Abidjan. As I could no longer return to my parents, I came here to be independent. I do not want to get into a serious relationship with a man. However, I have a boyfriend. Thanks to his help and my small business, I can cover my needs. ⁹

Overcrowding in the slum areas of Ahmedabad leads to high levels of waste, making these areas highly pollution prone. In addition, absence of an adequate sanitation network causes sewage to accumulate in open areas. The condition becomes precarious during the monsoons. More than 30 per cent of the population does not have access to underground sewers for waste disposal. Often the drinking water facilities are not at a distance from the drainage sites. This, coupled with the location of slums near the city's industrial areas and their polluting units, compounds the health hazards faced by the slum dwellers. The indices of diseases caused by polluted air or water or both rise rapidly in the slum areas. On the whole, the quality of the local environment is very poor and the population is susceptible to water-borne diseases, malaria and other contagious diseases. ¹⁰

These are interesting findings. All slum households in Bangkok have a colour television. The average number of TVs per household is
1.6. There is only one household that has a broken TV with an unclear picture. Al of them have a refrigerator. Two-third households have a CD player, a washing machine and 1.5 cell phones. Half of them have a home telephone, a video player and a motorcycle. However, only one fourth (27 percent) own an automobile. Only 15 per them own an air-conditioning unit and a hot water machine in a bathroom. It should be noted that television and refrigerator are considered common necessities for day to day life.  Cellphones are very popular in Thailand.¹¹

The life conditions of poor people in Bogotá constantly change according to the place in which they live, their work and the people they are in charge of.  Depending on the location of their neighbourhood, they could live in zones exposed to floods and landslides, located far from the main roads or in some very insecure places. If they are large families incomes tend to be more limited and the possibilities to access education are fewer.  Some household heads have not had any education, which makes it more difficult to find a job and supply the needs of their families, while others have the possibility to get other kinds of jobs in which they will receive a better payment. ¹²

It was a shock for Um Ishaq when she first saw her new house in Manshiet Nasser. Although the house has two floors, each with two sleeping rooms, a living room, a kitchen and a toilet on a total floor size of 50m², once she steps steps out of the house, she finds herself surrounded by garbage.  All streets adjacent to the house are covered with non-recyclable waste and sacks with plastic, paper, metal and glass waste are piled up the walls of the houses.
Goats, chickens and cats search through the garbage for food. The house is located in the Zabaleen area where most of Cairo's garbage collectors live. 'The biggest problem are the mice and the snakes which come with the garbage. You just can't get rid of them says Um
Ishaq, 'but what can we do, we have to live somewhere and we couldn't afford a house somewhere else. '¹³

Women in a slum community in Colombo formed a small group savings and credit programme. The programme has grown well and the women now get loans for their self-income activities. After six months, they networked their group with the other groups in the area and now they have their own Women's Bank. One woman received a loan of Rs.l 00,000 for building a small house for her family, and another Rs.80, 000 for buying a three-wheeler for her son to start his own business. Now poor women don't need to go to moneylenders. They have their own bank. ¹⁴

POPULATION EXPLOSION AND URBAN EXPANSION

Rapid urbanization, one of the greatest socio-economic changes during the last five decades or so, has caused the burgeoning of new kinds of slums, the growth of squatter and informal housing all around the rapidly expanding cities of the developing world. Urban populations have increased explosively in the past 50 years, and will continue to do so for at least the next 30 years as the number of people born in cities increase and as people continue to be displaced from rural areas that are almost at capacity. The rate of creation of normal sector urban jobs is well below the expected growth rate of the urban labour force, so in all probability the majority of these new residents will eke out an informal living and will live in slums.
At the time of the first United Nations Conference on Human Settlements in 1976, there were just over 3.5 billion people in the world. Two decades later, when the second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements took place, there were already 6 billion people worldwide. The worlds urban population had doubled in only two decades. The developing world has been predominantly rural but is quickly becoming urban. In 1950 only 18 per cent of people in developing countries lived in cities. In 2000 the proportion was 40 per cent, and by 2030 the developing world is predicted to be 56 per cent urban. Future urban growth in developing countries will be absorbed by urban centres, which have a high average annual urban population growth rate of. 2.3 per cent, in contrast to the developed world's rate of 0.4 per cent.
The Global Report on Human Settlements 1996, An Urbanizing World, highlighted that while there is no evidence that a threshold population size exists beyond which cities generate more negative than positive effects for their countries, in many cities the rapid pace of population growth and enormous size of the population have overwhelmed the capacity of municipal authorities to respond. ¹⁵ Millions of people in the developing country cities cannot meet their basic needs for shelter, water, food, health and education
The 'new urban revolution' - explosive growth of cities in developing countries - presents a serious challenge for national and local authorities. How can the capacity of governments be enhanced to stimulate the investment required to generate jobs and to provide the services, infrastructure and: social supports necessary to sustain liveable and stable environments? Developing countries will also face intensified environmental problems due to urbanization, how can living conditions be improved for the millions of people densely packed into cities without destroying the natural resource base on which improved living standards depend? Meeting the challenges posed by rapid urbanization could be as important for the future as addressing rapid population growth itself has been over the last 50 years.

ACCOMMODATING GROWTH

The incomes of slum dwellers are mostly too low for formally regulated markets to provide them with any kind of permanent housing. They have acted to solve their own problems by building their own dwellings, or by building informal rental accommodation for each other. Rather than being assisted in their efforts by governments, they have been hounded and their homes frequently demolished, they have been overlooked when basic services are provided, and they have been ignored and excluded from normal opportunities offered to other urban citizens.
It is a mistake to think that slums are an unnecessary or extraneous part of the city, that slums are just for poor people or that they are all the same. In the developing world, slums are in fact the dwelling places of much of the labour force in their cities, they provide a number of important services and are interesting communities in their own right. They are melting pots for different racial groups and cultures. Many of the most important movements in music, dance and politics have had their origins in slums. Many people who are not so poor also live in slums.
For the most part, however, people in slums are among the most disadvantaged. Slums are distinguished by the poor quality of housing, the poverty of the inhabitants, the lack of public and private services and the poor integration of the inhabitants into the broader community and its opportunities. Slum dwellers rate far lower on human development indicators than other urban residents, they have more health problems, less access to education, social services and employment, and most have very low incomes. Slums are a staging ground for people moving to the city or for people who are temporarily in trouble, a place where they can live cheaply until they establish themselves. The long-term aim of most slum dwellers is to make some money and find a better place to live. Many succeed, many others do not. Particularly for the increasing number of those without stable employment, who live a hand-to-mouth existence in the rapidly growing informal sector, life is hard and always uncertain. Social exclusion, lack of empowerment, illness or living in a precarious and illegal. situation make it very difficult for slum dwellers to do more than survive, sometimes in reasonable, if insecure, conditions, but just as often in poverty and despair.
The drab vistas of slums that occupy many large cities of the developing world, and the amorphous, polycentric patchworks of commercial concrete buildings and informal markets is far from the dream of modernist urban planners who sought to design 'garden cities' of harmony and light, or who speculated about ultra-high-rise futuristic cybercities. In many cities around the world, there is growing wealth for some but also abject poverty for many others; gated communities whose residents have access to all the amenities and conveniences that make life comfortable and pleasant are now a common feature but there are also sprawling slums that fail to meet even people's most basic needs, that are used as dumping grounds for hazardous wastes and other socially undesirable externalities, and where lack of access to safe water and adequate sanitation pose serious health risks and create life-threatening conditions.
The main problem is that very few countries, cities or agencies have recognized this critical situation, and outside of a few rapidly advancing countries, very little development effort is going into providing jobs for the rapidly expanding urban population, or planning for land, housing and services that 2 billion new urban residents will need. Slum dwellers lack access to water supply, sanitation, storm water drainage, solid waste disposal and many essential services. However, there is very little forward planning to address even the current problems, let alone the expected future doubling of demand.
Some of the national development policies currently in favour have actually acted to reduce employment and increase inequality. They have made the conditions in cities of the developing world worse and must take some responsibility for the dramatic expansion of slums over the last 30 years. Formal sector employment opportunities are not expected to expand greatly under these policies, and the majority of new residents are expected to work in the informal sector and live in slums, in the absence of any concerted intervention.
Poor or biased policies with regard to land are also an enormous obstacle in the path of the poor in their search of a place to live, as in many developing countries the legal and regulatory frameworks, particularly with regard to land markets and land acquisition, including land registry, land valuation, and legal instruments to facilitate land acquisition, are ineffective. Furthermore, the poor often do not have access to the financial resources needed to buy houses, as the existing housing finance system are not accessible to them and subsidies for housing are not properly targeted. Without significant improvements in the legal, regulatory, and financial systems, the problem of current slums is only a glimpse of an even worse future.
In general, slums are the products of failed policies, bad governance, corruption, inappropriate regulation, dysfunctional land markets, unresponsive financial systems and a fundamental lack of political will. Upgrading of existing slum and squatter settlements addresses the backlog of urban neglect but many cities, especially in Africa and Asia, will face an onslaught of new urban residents over the next several decades, many of whom will be poor.
Increasingly, however, coalitions are being formed between international agencies, cities and action groups which wish to improve the situation, and they are acting in a concerted way and with the benefit of knowledge of past successes and failures to deal with the challenge of slums. Holistic approaches to the life situation of slum dwellers are being developed as part of city strategies and with the direct participation of the slum. dwellers themselves. These responses are considerably more sophisticated than the simple engineering solutions or slum clearances of the past, which often created more problems than they solved. They take into account income generation, social services, location, environmental, economic and political sustainability, governance and community cohesion, as well as the straightforward physical upgrading of the slum itself. Replicating these efforts on a large and continuing scale is the challenge which action groups and international agencies now face.

THE FOCUS OF THIS REPORT

Over the course of the next two decades, the global urban population will double, from 2.5 billion to 5 billion. Almost all of this increase will be in developing countries. Understanding and managing dynamics of urbanization and addressing issues of secure land tenure are also critical elements in any comprehensive poverty reduction policy... The World Bank and Habitat are building a global alliance of cities and their development programme includes the Cities Without Slums action plan, whose patron is President Nelson Mandela. The aim of the programme is to improve the living conditions of 100 million slum dwellers in the developing countries by 2020. ¹⁶

This report is the fourth issue of the Global Report series, the established goal of which is to provide a complete review of the condition of human settlements, including an analysis of major forces and trends accounting for their development, maintenance and improvement. The specific objectives of the series are to:

-provide a basic source of information on global and regional conditions of human settlements and trends that would be of value to individual countries and international agencies in shaping their policies and programmes;
-encourage and maintain a general interest in, and contribute to, the understanding of the evolving nature of human settlements, the interrelationship of their parts and the significance of settlement systems in providing settings for human, social, economic and environmental development;
-provide a periodic updating and synthesis of all information that may be relevant to the above objectives.


The current Global Report is a response to the historical decision of the Millennium Assembly to address the problem of slums. The purpose of the issue is several-fold. To begin with, it is the first attempt ever to document the extent and the diversity of slums worldwide. Although a comprehensive assessment must await completion of continuing work on the estimation of numbers of slum dwellers, this report provides useful indications in this regard. Secondly, this report examines the aetiology of slums. It explores the underlying dynamics that give rise to the formation and expansion of slums in different parts of the world. Thirdly, the report reviews the various approaches that have been adopted in the past concerning the challenges posed by slums as well as the approaches that are currently being pursued.  Finally, the report aims to draw lessons from the experiences in dealing with slum problems. It seeks to learn about policies and programmes that have worked and how they might be adapted to address similar challenges elsewhere, The review and analyses presented in this report focus in particular on innovative approaches and make the case for their :positive potential, while also stressing their limitations and cautioning against seeing them as a panacea for all problems faced by slum dwellers.
Broadly speaking, this Global Report focuses on urban poverty and, slums. Within this wider context, there is a more specific concern with the role of different actors in developing solutions for the pressing problems of inadequate access to housing and basic services. A conclusion of the 2001 Global Report, Cities in a Globalizing World, concerned the emergence of broad-based partnerships that involve not only the public and private sectors, but also civil society groups.  The current report shows that in this regard the participation of people living in poverty and their representative organizations as empowered and equal partners is crucial for effective problem solving. Evidence presented in the chapters that follow demonstrates how such broad-based partnerships work in innovative and supplemental ways, freeing up productive potential and helping mobilize necessary resources. In short, the aims of this report are to:

-assess slums, globally, in terms of their extent and form;
-determine the forces underlying the emergence and shaping the development of slums;
-assess the social, spatial and economic characteristics and functions of slums;
-identify and assess policy responses to slums, including those of the public sector, international organizations and civil society; and
-explore future policy directions aimed at realization of the goal of the Cities Without Slums action plan.¹⁸

Part of the report establishes why slums are important in the global agenda, and the global changes that have been occurring in de'lJ1ographics, poverty, inequality, trade policy and informal networks, all in the context of liberalization and globalization. It looks at international agreements and coalitions seeking to improve the situation of slum dwellers, and at possible definitions and means of enumerating them. It also considers if the processes of formation of slums and the external and internal forces that lead to the segregation and deterioration of particular areas. These include market forces within cities, inappropriate government interventions and regulations, global economic changes and changes in the orientation of policy that have led to greater inequality and have inadvertently expanded the urban informal sector while failing to deliver affordable and secure housing, as well as urban services.
Part II is concerned with slums, their form, their role in the city and their living conditions. The impacts of slums on ill health and the life chances of slum citizens, the danger to slum dwellers from criminal activities and the lack of basic urban services in different parts of the world are discussed. The different types of slums are described, drawing from the city case studies commissioned for the report. The discussion shows the great variety in form, location and legal status that may occur, the means that people use to try to establish their legality, and different interventions including the gradual upgrading of better-situated informal settlements. Changes in the global labour force are examined, including the rapid fall-off in agricultural employment in all regions. The informal sector is described, particularly its roles in providing employment for many slum dwellers. The effects of illegality and insecure tenure on slum dwellers are also considered, along with an assessment of the extent of housing inadequacy. Finally, the role of governance and urban management in improving the situation of slum dwellers is described, particularly the lack of any real policy to deal with the problems of current and future slums in many cities.
Part III examines the various attempts to deal with the problems of slums, and critically reviews the changing priorities and assumptions of the various stakeholders responsible for improving the situation, and the problems they have faced in practice. Both public-sector and market- based attempts to improve the situation in developed and developing countries are considered, along with their successes and failures over many decades of experience. These policies have ranged from neglect or eviction, through to slum upgrading, public housing and aided self-help. Several recent large-scale interventions through direct subsidy are considered, alongside the now standard international response of slum upgrading accompanied by inclusive strategies of partnership and participation and a much greater concern for environmental and social sustainability. The role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and community-based organizations (CBOs), which have been essential in facilitating and managing the self-help process, is also considered. Finally, broader policies, including attempts to improve the lives of slum dwellers through better governance, income generation, transport policy, access to finance and overall 'inclusive city' approaches are discussed.
If there is a single conclusion from such a complex web of concerns and responses, it is that cities and countries that have admitted what the problems of slums are and that have come to a social consensus about how to solve them with a clear vision and consistent strategy have generally found that the problems can be solved and will partly solve themselves through the efforts of everyone involved in meeting that vision.

NOTES

Specifically for the purposes of this report 37 case studies were commissioned. The full text of 34 of these studies is available electronically from UN-Habitat and a short summary of 29 of the case studies is contained in Part IV of this report. The authors of the case studies are listed in the Acknowledgements.

2. Case study - Kolkata, 2002.
3. Case study - Beirut, 2002. Case study - Quito, 2002. Case study - Mexico City, 2002.
4. Case study - Nairobi, 2002. Case study - Santiago de Chile, 2002.
5. Case study - Sao Paulo, 2002. Case study - Abidjan, 2002.

6. Case study - Nairobi, 2002.

7. Case study - Santiago de Chile, 2002.

8. Case study - Sao Paulo, 2002.

9. Case study - Abidjan, 2002.

10. Case study - Ahmedabad, 2002.
11.Case study - Bangkok, 2002.

12 Case study - Bogotá, 2002.

13 Case study - Cairo, 2002.
14 Case study - Colombo, 2002.

15 UNCHS (Habitat), 1996a.
16 Kofi A Annan, Secretary- General of the United Nations (2000) Common Destiny, New Resolve Annual Report on the Work of the Organization. United Nations, New York.

17 UNCHS (Habitat), 2001 a.

18 For details of Cities Without Slums, see Cities Alliance, 1999. See also Boxes 7.11 and 9.3 in this report

© Viv Grigg, other materials © by various contributors & Urban Leadership Foundation,   Last modified: April 2007