UN report: Number of slum dwellers across globe jumps 51 million in 10 years

UN report: Overall number of slum dwellers up

SAO PAULO — The number of people living in slum conditions increased by 51 million during the past 10 years, despite global efforts to halt poverty, according to a United Nations’ report released Friday.

The report by the Nairobi-based U.N.-Habitat said that the number of slum dwellers rose to 828 million in 2010, while also noting that about 227 million people were able to escape such conditions in the past decade — double as many forecast in the U.N. Millennium Goals set in 2000.

“Success is highly skewed toward the more advanced emerging economies, while poorer countries have not done as well,” said Habitat executive director Anna Tibaijuka. “For this reason, there is no room for complacency.”

An alarming trend highlighted by the report is that of “refugee cities” — mostly the result of war and violent conflict.

One-fourth of the 2 million people living in Amman, Jordan, are refugees — mostly Iraqis fleeing war and Palestinians escaping the conflict with Israel, the report concluded, adding that the “increasingly crowded environment” puts extra strain on the officials of Amman and other refugee-packed cities trying to maintain security, economic stability and public services.

The report claims there are 7 million “known refugees, displaced persons, asylum seekers and returnees combined” — most of whom are flocking to cities in poor, conflict-prone regions of Africa.

A nagging problem noted in the “State of the World’s Cities 2010/2011″ report is that of unequal growth, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere. Even where economic advances have been made, it has too often meant increased economic and social exclusion for many citizens.

Such urban divides will have to be addressed collectively “to stem the multiple deprivations that follow from unequal growth,” Tibaijuka wrote in the report, referring to poverty, environmental degradation, income inequalities, historical socio-economic inequalities, marginalization and various forms of exclusion.

Three South African cities topped the report’s list of the most unequal cities in the world: Buffalo City, Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni. They were followed by four Brazilian cities: Goiana, Fortaleza, Belo Horizonte and the capital, Brasilia.

Beijing, Shanghai, and several other cities in China were ranked as being the most equal — though they were labeled as being “equally poor” by the report. Also on that list are Caracas, Venezuela; Dakar, Senegal; Jakarta, Indonesia; and several cities in Jordan.

The findings were based on the Gini index, which measures either a country’s distribution of household income or its consumption spending. The index is the most widely used metric of inequality.

The 224-page report states that governments need to give citizens better access to education and jobs to close the gap, and let all residents participate in the political decision making that affects daily life.

On the Net:

Summary chapters of the report: tinyurl.com/yars4u7