A/HRC/22/61 D. Right to adequate housing 20. Urban population growth patterns indicate that the poor are concentrated in undesirable areas, leaving them vulnerable to heightened risk of disease, disaster and insecurity. The urban poor “face many of the same challenges in daily life as the rural poor, with the added burden of overcrowded and often unsanitary living conditions”.44 Around one third of the urban population in developing countries – nearly 1 billion people – live in slums. In Africa, the proportion of urban-dwellers living in slums is some 71 per cent and 59 per cent in South Asia.45 The number of slum dwellers worldwide will increase to 2 billion in the next 30 years if no firm or concrete action is taken to arrest the situation. 46 21. Given that the urban poor very rarely own tenure over their land or housing, they often face the constant threat of eviction, are vulnerable to mistreatment owing to the informality of renting agreements, have greater difficulty in obtaining access to credit, and cannot use their homes for income-generating activities.47 Much of this predicament is due to too few pro-poor policies with regard to urbanization as a permanent pattern that requires acceptance and incorporation into city development strategies. There is a reluctance to integrate poor communities into the larger city, particularly in formalizing informal settlements, providing basic infrastructure or improving land tenure laws. 22. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services”. The right to adequate housing includes security of tenure, accessibility to services and infrastructure, habitability, affordability, inclusive location, and cultural adequacy. 48 For the urban poor, securing adequate housing that meets these criteria in order to achieve such a standard of living is a challenge.49 E. Right to health 23. The urban poor suffer from health risks that are sometimes worse than those of their rural counterparts.50 Poor urban settlements often form in city centres near environmentally unsafe areas, such as waste dumps or industrial sites, 51 where inadequate water and sanitation infrastructure combined with highly concentrated living conditions make them particularly vulnerable to negative health outcomes (including infectious, respiratory and diarrheal diseases). HIV/AIDS prevalence rates are also very high in urban areas, exceeding 50 per cent in some cities. Despite better access to health care in urban areas, morbidity and mortality rates can even be higher for those living in slums than that of rural residents.52 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 Baker, “Urban poverty”, p. 5. See UNFPA, State of World Population 2007, p. 39. UN-Habitat, The Human Settlements Statistical Database (2001). Baker, “Urban poverty”, p. 6. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment No. 4 (1991) on the right to adequate housing. UN-Habitat. See Mark R. Montgomery, “Urban Poverty and Health in Developing Countries”, Population Bulletin, vol. 64, No. 2 (June 2009) Baker, “Urban poverty”, p. 9. For instance, infant mortality is almost 2.5 times higher in Nairobi‟s slums than in all of Nairobi (151 deaths per 1,000 against 62 in the rest of the city). African Population and Health Research Center, “Population and Health Dynamics in Nairobi‟s Informal Settlements”, report of the Nairobi CrossSectional Slums Survey (Nairobi, 2002). 9