'This is surely the most impressive and important publication to come out of the UN system for many years.' Peter Adamson, founder, New Internationalist, and author and researcher of UNICEF's The State of the World's Children from 1980 to 1995 The world's governments agreed at the Millennium Summit to halve, by 2015, the number of people who lack access to safe water. With rapidly growing urban populations the challenge is immense. Water and Sanitation in the World's Cities is a comprehensive and authoritative assessment of the problems and how they can be addressed. This influential...

A comprehensive assessment of the world's cities and a reference tool for academics, researchers, planners, public authorities and civil society organizations around the world. The 2003 report addresses the growing problems presented by slums in an increasingly globalized world. Using extensive case studies, it analyses the factors behind the creation of slums and reviews the policies taken towards them. It demonstrates that to meet the UN's Millennium Goals of significantly improving the lives of over 100 million slum dwellers by 2020, policies must go beyond traditional infrastrucutral...

The Challenge of Slums presents the first global assessment of slums, emphasizing their problems and prospects. Using a newly formulated operational definition of slums, it presents estimates of the number of urban slum dwellers and examines the factors at all level, from local to global, that underlie the formation of slums as well as their social, spatial and economic characteristics and dynamics. It goes on to evaluate the principal policy responses to the slum challenge of the last few decades. From this assessment, the immensity of the challenges that slums pose is clear. Almost 1...

* An authoritative, up-to-date global assessment of the challenges of financing urban shelter
* Supported by informative graphics and case studies from around the world
* Statistical annexes provides a thorough breakdown of essential data


The Global Report on Human Settlements is the most authoritative and up-to-date assessment of conditions and trends in the world??'s cities. It is an essential tool and reference for researchers, academics, public authorities and civil society organizations around the world.
The 2005...

The 2005 Global Report on Human Development presents a global assessment of housing finance systems, placing shelter and urban development challenges within the overall context of macroeconomic policies.

Focusing on the deficiencies in the provision of water and sanitation in urban cases where most of the populations of the developing world live, this text examines some of the emerging problems and issues in the field, as well as proposing strategies to deal with them.