chapter 4 - DRK

Strictly under embargo until Wednesday 22 September at 00:01 GMT (02:01 Geneva time)The last few decades have also brought a very large increase in the number of urbandwellers living in poverty, mostly in low- and middle-income nations. This is mostevident in the poor-quality and overcrowded housing and the lack of provision forthe basic infrastructure and services which should protect them from environmentalhealth hazards and help prevent disasters. Although precise numbers are lacking,an overall view of UN estimates suggests that around 1 billion urban dwellers livein poor-quality, overcrowded housing in slums or informal settlements with this risingto 1.4 billion by 2020 unless governments and international agencies become farmore successful in supporting housing improvements for low-income groups. TheUN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) recently published revised figuresstating that the “absolute number” of slum dwellers in the developing world has actuallyincreased from 776.7 million in 2000 to some 827.6 million in 2010. This assessmentis accompanied by a claim that during the same decade, a total of 227 millionpeople have moved out of slum conditions, which means that the Millennium DevelopmentGoal target has been surpassed 2.2 times. However, an inquiry by the WorldDisasters Report elicited the response that this number is partly based on a redefinitionof international sanitation standards which retrospectively excluded families that haveaccess to a slab-pit latrine which in itself may have very little impact on their healthand well-being.Other UN estimates show a massive deficit in provision for water and sanitation. Estimatesfor 2000 suggested at least 680 million urban dwellers lacked adequate provisionfor water supplies and at least 850 million lacked provision for toilets or latrines to aquality that reduced health risks. Since 2000, the urban population in low- and middle-incomenations has increased by more than 500 million. As few governments haveworked successfully with their low-income urban population to improve conditions,this also means there are now hundreds of millions more urban dwellers living in povertyand lacking adequate provision for water and sanitation. Other estimates suggest alower proportion of the urban population in low- and middle-income nations are poor,but these take little or no account of housing conditions and often do not factor intothe poverty lines the full costs of non-food needs in many cities. Set a poverty line unrealisticallylow and it can suggest there is almost no poverty in cities where a high proportionof the population lives in very poor-quality housing in informal settlements.Urban poverty and disaster risk are often closely intertwined. Accidents or outbreaks ofdisease that kill or seriously injure people and / or damage or destroy property are classifiedas disasters if they exceed certain thresholds for the number killed (typically ten ormore) or seriously injured (typically 100 or more). In all urban areas, there are manyaccidents that kill or seriously injure fewer people than this, such as most road trafficaccidents and accidental fires. Urban poverty can dramatically increase prematuredeaths and serious injuries due to dangerous, overcrowded housing lacking infrastructureand services. For instance, the lack of access roads may stop fire engines from gettingto the site of an accidental fire, which has spread owing to housing clustered closeWorld Disasters Report 2010 – Focus on urban risk15