DUBAI, 4 November 2021 – The United Nations on Wednesday unveiled a plan for an inclusive, localised approach to make informal settlements safe and sustainable.
Launching the Last Mile Delivery Roadmap, the blueprint looks to advance UN-Habitat’s New Urban Agenda, building on lessons learned through its Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme (PSUP) which supports 190 cities worldwide to address inequality in service provision in informal settlements, ensuring no one is left behind.
Kerstin Sommer, Programme Manager, Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme, UN-Habitat, unveiled the plans during Expo 2020’s Urban and Rural Development Week, saying: “People in slums have shorter lives, lack a safe home and are less resilient to change.”
She noted that inadequate housing, or slums, were the only way that many people could afford to live in proximity to employment opportunities.
“Inadequate housing is currently the affordable solution: Slums make cities inclusive,” she said.
Sharing UN-Habitat’s decades of work on upgrading slums and informal settlements, Sommer called for inclusive frameworks and a shift towards city-wide approaches to integrating slums and informal settlements.
“We would like to develop a global application based on everything that was shared today, such as case studies, along with the trends, the data, the learning, people’s perspectives of transformation, and then go towards a global action plan that is informed by a thorough analysis of the learning of the last 20 years, since 2000, on informal settlements.”
In a virtual address, Mmamoloko Kubayi, Minister of Human Settlements, Republic of South Africa, explained how in-depth assessments and forums in informal settlements had led to upgrades in numerous provinces across South Africa, with positive effects on social policy and safety, particularly with interventions to protect vulnerable women, youth, children, the elderly and people of determination.
Kubayi said: “We started by identifying and verifying informal settlements in the country, gathering real-time data and monitoring the growth patterns, so that we could get a better understanding and planning for the extent of the challenges we are presently faced with… We have also learned that when we involve the community, they respond and adapt more positively to the change.”
By 2050, 70 per cent of the world’s population will be living in urban areas and the number of slum dwellers will increase to 3 billion, putting pressure on urban infrastructure and making communities, which include indigenous people, refugees, and migrants, vulnerable to disease outbreaks, and limiting the provision of services.
Commitments made under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 11) set the stage for countries to make cities and settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable by 2030.
Dr Eduardo Lopez Moreno, Director of Knowledge and Innovation of UN-Habitat and Habitat in Towns, reiterated the necessity of putting informal settlements on the global agenda: “There are one billion people living in slums. This is not so much a matter of poverty but of inequality and exclusiveness. Nearly 25 to 30 per cent of these people are not really poor, according to local standards, but live in slums because of the trade-off between mobility and opportunity. The lack of facilities like water and sanitation leads to higher mortality… The governments have to find innovative solutions to these problems in cities.”
Maimunah Mohd Sharif, Executive Director, UN‐Habitat said: “Inclusiveness is necessary for all, if we want to reduce poverty and inequality. The last mile delivery we are talking about today entails providing good living conditions for all, and empowering governments. We have the conditions to build the last mile, and we need to implement sustainable goals into the new agenda based on human rights.”
Earlier in the day, Henry Ohanga Don, the Kenyan hip hop artist popularly known as Octopizzo, highlighted the sense of community spirit and human values found in informal settlements: “If there are high family values anywhere, they are in slums. You find happy people there. If you have no money, you can knock on any door and someone will give you money… Everyone is a parent in slums, always ready to help and give advice.”
The day-long session convened global experts on the fourth day of Expo 2020 Dubai’s Urban and Rural Development Week, held in association with UN-Habitat and The Executive Council of Dubai, as part of the Expo 2020’s Programme for People and Planet.