UN says 227m people escaped slums in past decade

(March 19, 2010) Nearly a quarter of a billion people escaped life in the slums over the past decade, the United Nations says. The improvement was thanks largely to housing efforts in China and India, which made "giant strides", according to a new report by the UN Habitat agency. But the housing efforts were more than countered by world population growth and the rural exodus to cities. So overall, the total number of slum dwellers actually increased from 776.7 million to 827.6 million, during the years 2000-2010. "Cities are growing faster than the slum improvement rate," warned Gora Mboup, co-author of the report entitled, “State of the World Cities 2010/11: Bridging the Urban Divide.” "Short of drastic action, the world slum population will probably grow by six million each year, or another 61 million people, to hit a total of 889 million by 2020." In the past decade, China made improvements to the daily conditions of 65.3 million urban residents without shelter, while India lifted 59.7 million citizens out of poor housing. It means the UN has already achieved one of its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Under MDG 7, UN members pledged to make "significant improvement" in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020. But overall, the world now has 55 million extra slum dwellers than it did in 2000, according to UN Habitat, also known as the UN Human Settlements Programme.