Mathare, one of the largest slums in the country, is home to more than 500,000 people in five square kilometers, piling up them together and storing human waste that they produce in the streams discovered. But when he told the visit later to the PK Press Club, it was not the image that stuck him the most.
Without formal sewer systems, streams in the cans Mathare in Nairobi contain human waste.
What he remembered most clearly was a group of boys and girls, dressed in navy blue school uniforms – girls in skirts and pants boys, both with miniature ties under their vests – surrounded by howling chickens and human waste.
There was no official school or financed by UNICEF nearby. But the Mathare community had met to create a school where their children may well have the chance to break an intergenerational cycle of poverty and invisibility.
“It was a message for me that development should be located. Something happens to the community [level]”Said Mr. Jobin.
Globally, more than a billion people live in overcrowded slums or informal colonies with inadequate housing, which makes one of the largest development problems in the world, but also one of the most under-reported.
“The first place where the opportunity begins or is refused is not an office building or a school. It is to our homes,” said the deputy general general secretary of the UN (ECOSOC) on Tuesday.
A decisive test
Mr. Jobin was one of the experts participating in the high -level political forum (HLPF) on sustainable development at the UN headquarters in New York this month to discuss progress – or its absence – to the 17 sustainable development objectives (SDG).
One of the objectives aspires to create lasting cities and communities. However, with nearly three billion people faced with an affordable housing crisis, this objective is not achieved.
“Housing has become a decisive test of our social contract and a powerful measure of the question of whether the development really reaches people or around them quietly,” said Rola Dashti, general under-secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA).
Housing as a mirror for inequalities
A building in an informal colony in Mumbai, India.
With more than 300 million people without housing worldwide, it is sometimes easy to forget a billion people who are hosted but insufficiently. These people, who populate the colonies and informal slums, live in unstable housing and in communities where few services are provided.
“Housing reflects inequalities that shape people’s daily life. He reports who has access to stability, security and opportunities and who does not, “said Dashti.
Children living in slums or informal colonies are up to three times more likely to die before their fifth anniversary. They are also 45% slower than their peers due to poor nutrition.
Women and girls are more likely to undergo sexist violence. And the trafficking in human beings and the exploitation of children are also more widespread.
Intergenerational invisibility
People in informal establishments are often not part of the national census, according to Mr. Jobin, which means that they are not taken into account in policies, social programs or budgets. Even if they received social protections, these colonies rarely have addresses to which families could receive cash transfers.
This is why experts often say that people living in informal colonies and slums are invisible in official data and programs.
“You were born from an invisible family, so you become invisible,” said Mr. Jobin. “You do not exist. You are not reflected in policies or budgeting.”
This invisibility makes it almost impossible to escape poverty.
“You become a prisoner of a vicious circle that is entertained, then you reproduce your child,” he said, referring to an unavoidable deprivation cycle.
The urban paradox
More and more people migrate to urban centers, leading to the growth of these informal establishments. And with their growth, comes more emergency to solve problems.
The World Bank estimates that 1.2 million people each week move in cities, often seeking the opportunities and resources they offer. But millions of people are never able to benefit, becoming rather forgotten end notes in an urban paradox which depicts urban wealth as protection against poverty.
By 2050, the number of people living in informal colonies should triple three billion, a third of whom will be children. More than 90% of this growth will occur in Asia and Africa.
“These statistics are not only numbers – they represent families, they represent workers and entire communities that are left behind,” said Anacláudia Rossbach, UN UN under -secretary who works to make cities more sustainable.
The cans Mathare in Nairobi houses 500,000 people within 5 square kilometers.
Housing as a human right
It is not only the national and local governments that have trouble dealing with informal establishments – organizations like UNICEF are also “blind,” said Mr. Jobin, concerning the scope of problems in informal establishments.
Development partners face twin problems in the design of interventions – there is not enough national data and informal governance, or the bogus lords can be more critical for the coordination of programs than traditional government partners.
“We know the problem … But in one way or another, we have not really been able to intervene,” he said.
Ms. Mohammed stressed that we must start to see adequate and affordable housing than more than the result of development – this is the foundation on which any other development must be based.
“The accommodation does not just concern a roof above its head. It is a fundamental human right and the foundation on which peace and stability itself rests. ”
