UN-HABITAT twenty first session of the Governing Council, 16-20 April 2007, Nairobi, Kenya: slum dwellers to double by 2030, Millennium Development Goal could fall short

UN-HABITAT report finds many Governments ill-equipped to face Slum Challenge New approaches to urban planning and improved management policies urgently needed Nearly one billion people alive today - one in every six human beings - are slum dwellers, and that number is likely to double in the next thirty years, according to UN-HABITAT’s publication The Challenge of Slums: Global Report on Human Settlements 2003. Unprecedented urban growth in the face of increasing poverty and social inequality, and a predicted increase in the number of people living in slums (to about 2 billion by 2030), mean that the United Nations Millennium Development goal to improve the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020 should be considered the absolute bare minimum that the international community should aim for, according to this report.