1 billion and GROWING
On October 6, World
Habitat Day was celebrated with a pledge by world governments that they would improve
the lives of 100 million slum dwellers by 2020. That’s hardly 1 in 10! The
UN-HABITAT released startling figures on that day:
NO |
electricity
water taps
toilets |
| % of urban poor who don't
have all three |
| North Africa |
8% |
| Sub-Saharan Africa |
57% |
| Southeast Asia |
12% |
| Rest of Asia |
22% |
| Latin America |
12% |
 1billion people live in slums
There will be 2 billion in the next 30 years.
43% urbanites are slum dwellers in the developing world.
The figure is 78.2 per cent for the least developed countries.
Less than half the
population in urban centres of Africa, Asia and Latin America have water piped into their
homes.
Less than one third of them have adequate sanitation.
In Africa up to 150
million urban residents representing up to 50 percent of the urban population do not have
adequate water supplies.
And up to 180 million, or roughly 60
percent of people in urban areas lack adequate sanitation.
All slum households in Bangkok have a colour
TV; the average number of TVs per household is 1.6; almost all of them have a refrigerator
and two-thirds of them have a washing machine. |
|
