(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.