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	Yemen Food Crisis deteriorates, UN Agencies appeal for urgent assistance to avert a Catastrophe by WFP, Unicef, OCHA, FAO, NRC, agencies   Feb. 2019   Yemen: 2019 Humanitarian Needs Overview. (OCHA)   The humanitarian crisis in Yemen remains the worst in the world. Nearly four years of conflict and severe economic decline are driving the country to the brink of famine and exacerbating needs in all sectors. An estimated 80 per cent of the population - 24 million people - require some form of humanitarian or protection assistance, including 14.3 million who are in acute need.   Severity of needs is deepening, with the number of people in acute need a staggering 27 per cent higher than last year. Two-thirds of all districts in the country are already pre-famine, and one-third face a convergence of multiple acute vulnerabilities.   The escalation of the conflict since March 2015 has dramatically aggravated the protection crisis in which millions face risks to their safety and basic rights.   KEY HUMANITARIAN ISSUES   1. Basic survival needs   More than 20 million people across the country are food insecure, including nearly 10 million who are suffering from extreme levels of hunger. For the first time, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has confirmed pockets of catastrophic hunger in some locations, with 238,000 people affected. An estimated 7.4 million people require services to treat or prevent malnutrition, including 3.2 million people who require treatment for acute malnutrition - 2 million children under 5 and more than one million pregnant and lactating women (PLW).   A total of 17.8 million people lack access to safe water and sanitation, and 19.7 million people lack access to adequate healthcare.   Poor sanitation and waterborne diseases, including cholera, left hundreds of thousands of people ill last year.   In sum, needs have intensified across all sectors. Millions of Yemenis are hungrier, sicker and more vulnerable than a year ago, pushing an ever-greater number of people into reliance on humanitarian assistance. Humanitarian response is increasingly becoming the only lifeline for millions of Yemenis.   2. Protection of Civilians   Yemen is facing a severe protection crisis, and civilians face serious risks to their safety, well-being and basic rights. Tens of thousands of people have been killed or injured since 2015, and among them at least 17,700 civilians as verified by the UN.   An estimated 3.3 million people remain displaced, up from 2.2 million last year. This includes 685,000 people who fled fighting in Al Hudaydah and on the west coast from June onwards. Escalating conflict is causing extensive damage to public and civilian infrastructure. Intensity of conflict is directly related to severity of needs.   Humanitarian needs are most acute in governorates that have been most affected by conflict, including Taizz, Al Hudaydah and Sa'ada governorates. More than 60 per cent of people in these governorates are in acute need of humanitarian assistance.   3. Livelihoods and essential basic services   The Yemeni economy is on the verge of collapse. The economy has contracted by about 50 per cent since conflict escalated in March 2015. Employment and income opportunities have significantly diminished. Exchange rate volatility - including unprecedented depreciation of the Yemeni Rial (YER) further undermined households purchasing power.   Basic services and the institutions that provide them are collapsing, placing enormous pressure on the humanitarian response. The fiscal deficit since the last quarter of 2016 has led to major gaps in the operational budgets of basic services and erratic salary payments, severely compromising peoples access to basic services.   Only 51 per cent of health facilities are fully functional. More than a quarter of all children are out of school, and civil servants and pensioners in northern Yemen have not been paid salaries and bursaries for years. Humanitarian partners have been increasingly stretching to fill some of these gaps to ensure continuity of essential services.   http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-2019-humanitarian-needs-overview-enar http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/1000-children-infected-every-day-yemen-cholera-outbreak-spikes http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/record-update-situation-hajjah-and-hodeidah-yemen http://www.nrc.no/perspectives/2019/why-yemen-is-the-worlds-worst-humanitarian-crisis/ http://www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-website/resources/resources-details/en/c/1151864/ http://bit.ly/2EagMXw   July 2018 (Reuters)   Yemen is close to famine after a 25-percent increase in levels of severe hunger this year and an offensive on the main port city of Hodeida, a lifeline for millions, humanitarian organisations warned this week.   Thousands more people have been displaced by the conflict and many are having to skip meals and beg on the streets, they said, with an estimated 8.4 million people already on the verge of starvation.   "We perceive the country to be sitting on a knife edge in terms of famine - it could tip at any time really," Suze van Meegen, spokeswoman for the Norwegian Refugee Council, told the Thomson Reuters foundation from the capital, Sanaa. "The desperation we are seeing is becoming greater - more people are begging in the streets."   The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said four in every 10 children under five were now acutely malnourished.   "Averting famine in Yemen will be contingent on the ability of WFP and other humanity agencies to reach the populations in need to sustain humanitarian assistance," said Stephen Anderson, Yemen country director for the WFP, by phone from Sanaa.   July 2017   Statement by UNICEF Executive Director, Anthony Lake, WFP Executive Director, David Beasley and WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, following their joint visit to Yemen.   'As the heads of three United Nations agencies we have travelled together to Yemen to see for ourselves the scale of this humanitarian crisis and to step up our combined efforts to help the people of Yemen.   This is the world's worst cholera outbreak in the midst of the world's largest humanitarian crisis. In the last three months alone, 400,000 cases of suspected cholera and nearly 1900 associated deaths have been recorded. Vital health, water and sanitation facilities have been crippled by more than two years of hostilities, and created the ideal conditions for diseases to spread.   The country is on the brink of famine, with over 60 per cent of the population not knowing where their next meal will come from. Nearly 2 million Yemeni children are acutely malnourished. Malnutrition makes them more susceptible to cholera; diseases create more malnutrition. A vicious combination.   At one hospital, we visited children who can barely gather the strength to breathe. We spoke with families overcome with sorrow for their ill loved ones and struggling to feed their families.   And, as we drove through the city, we saw how vital infrastructure, such as health and water facilities, have been damaged or destroyed.   Amid this chaos, some 16,000 community volunteers go house to house, providing families with information on how to protect themselves from diarrhea and cholera. Doctors, nurses and other essential health staff are working around the clock to save lives.   More than 30,000 health workers haven't been paid their salaries in more than 10 months, but many still report for duty. We have asked the Yemeni authorities to pay these health workers urgently because, without them, we fear that people who would otherwise have survived may die. As for our agencies, we will do our best to support these extremely dedicated health workers with incentives and stipends.   We also saw the vital work being done by local authorities and NGOs, supported by international humanitarian agencies, including our own. We have set up more than 1000 diarrhoea treatment centres and oral rehydration corners. The delivery of food supplements, medical supplies, including ambulances, is ongoing, as is work on the rebuilding of critical infrastructure - the rehabilitation of hospitals, district health centres and the water and sanitation network.   The total number of children who will be afflicted with severe acute malnutrition this year is estimated at 385,000.. The situation remains dire. Thousands are falling sick every day. Sustained efforts are required to stop the spread of disease. Nearly 80 percent of Yemen's children need immediate humanitarian assistance.   When we met with Yemeni leaders - in Aden and in Sana'a - we called on them to give humanitarian workers access to areas affected by fighting. And we urged them - more than anything - to find a peaceful political solution to the conflict.   We call on the international community to redouble its support for the people of Yemen. If we fail to do so, the catastrophe we have seen unfolding before our eyes will not only continue to claim lives but will scar future generations and the country for years to come'.   http://www.unicef.org/press-releases/statement-unicef-executive-director-anthony-lake-wfp-executive-director-david http://www.icrc.org/en/document/statement-urgent-plea-yemen-icrc-president http://www.msf.org/en/article/yemen-urgent-need-aid-remote-areas-stop-cholera-deaths http://www.savethechildren.net/article/yemen-one-million-malnourished-children-caught-cholera-hot-zones http://www.unocha.org/story/yemen-what-people-need-most http://www.unocha.org/yemen http://www1.wfp.org/yemen-emergency   Apr. 2017   Race against time to save millions of lives in Yemen (WFP/UNICEF)   The continuing violence in Yemen is fuelling one of the worst hunger crises in the world, with 7 million people not knowing where their next meal will come from and in desperate need of food assistance.   Nearly 2.2 million children are malnourished, including half a million who are severely malnourished and at imminent risk of death if they do not receive urgent care and specialized treatment.   'Millions of children in Yemen are acutely malnourished and many are dying from diseases that are entirely preventable', said Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.   'Without further action from parties to the conflict and the international community, Yemen is at a serious risk of plunging into famine - with even more children's lives hanging in the balance. We are in a race against time'.   'When a country reaches a stage of famine, it means many lives have already been lost. We should never reach a point where we see children dying of starvation and bereaved mothers mourning their loss on television screens', said Muhannad Hadi, WFP Regional Director for the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and East Europe.   'If we act now, many lives could be saved in Yemen. We call on the international community to urgently provide us with sufficient funding and to help us avert famine across Yemen'.   Violence and food insecurity are having a devastating toll on families incomes forcing them and their children to take extreme measures just to survive, including early marriage and joining the fighting.   Violence has made large parts of the country inaccessible to humanitarian workers, cutting off vulnerable children and families from urgently needed aid.   The needs of people in Yemen have rapidly outpaced available resources. WFP urgently requires US$1.2 billion to meet the basic requirements of 9 million food insecure people in Yemen over the coming 12 months. UNICEF has appealed for US$236 million to provide life-saving assistance to children affected by the conflict in Yemen in 2017. The efforts of both agencies are less than 20 per cent funded.   On behalf of children and vulnerable families, UNICEF and WFP are calling for an immediate political solution to end the war in Yemen.   This would provide safety for millions of desperate families in Yemen and allow for a massive scale-up of food assistance, nutrition support and other humanitarian aid. Until that happens and as the conflict intensifies, the two agencies appeal to all parties to the conflict and those who have influence on them to allow unhindered humanitarian access to people in need and refrain from any action that could prevent the delivery of lifesaving humanitarian supplies.   http://uni.cf/2p2wdKY http://www.wfp.org/news/news-release/race-against-time-save-millions-lives-yemen http://bit.ly/2oKo378 http://tmsnrt.rs/2qcwlFq http://bit.ly/2pxMHMo   Mar. 2017   Children starving to death from lack of Food in Yemen, by news correspondent Sophie McNeill.   Yemen is listed as the worst-affected country facing potential famine, where more than 7 million people require emergency food assistance.   When I was in Yemen last August, we witnessed kids starving to death, in the hospitals of the capital city, Sanaa.   I'll never forget the looks on the parents faces. They were so ashamed and embarrassed, unable to afford the most basic food for their children who now lay in hospital on the verge of death, some with their stomachs bloated and others with their tiny ribs sticking out.   Seventeen-month-old Eissa's mum sat on the bed holding her lifeless son, tears streaming out of her eyes. We went back to that hospital the next day. Eissa's bed was empty. He had died overnight.   It's hard to believe the situation in Yemen has gotten so much worse since then. Now the UN says there are more than 460,000 children like Eissa who are currently suffering from severe acute malnutrition.   "While Yemen is being starved or is starving, there is nothing really that is actually taking place to actually fix it," Jamie McGoldrick, the UN's top aid official in Yemen, told me this week.   "What we are facing is a generation of young kids who are going to be stunted. They are never going to reach their full potential physically and intellectually, because of the importance of those early years and the right nutrition."   The plight of children starving to death in Yemen was first reported around March last year. Video and photos of this horrific phenomena has continued to be reported since then, despite the incredible difficulties facing journalists accessing the war-torn country.   But despite the overwhelming evidence, families across Yemen are continuing to watch their children die from a lack of food.   "There are stories of mothers who have to make stark choices," Mr McGoldrick told me. "Where you either use your limited money to treat your sick child, and pay for medicine and transport them to the hospital, or you don't and that child dies and you then feed the two or three that you have."   It's clear the world knows this is happening but is refusing to act and is choosing to ignore what is happening in Yemen.   I asked Mr McGoldrick what should people do?   "I think raise their voices to their politicians and parliaments," he said. "Create an appreciation of the tragedy that is happening here in Yemen and push their government to give aid funding to the humanitarian crisis."   http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/humanitarian-coordinator-yemen-jamie-mcgoldrick-statement-humanitarian-situation-yemen
	By 2050, 3 billion people are projected to be slum dwellers by UN Habitat, Save the Children, IIED, agencies   The UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) estimates that 881 million people or 30% of developing countries urban populations live in slums (UN-Habitat, 2014). This could rise to 3 billion or 60% by 2050 (UN DESA, 2013, 2014).   The particularity of slums among informal settlements, that should be urgently addressed, is the level of perpetual poverty, deprivation and socio-spatial exclusion to which the people residing in them are subjected to live in, a condition that also affects the overall prosperity of the cities and towns in which they exist.   The impact of living in these areas is life threatening. Slums are marginalised, often large collections of dilapidated housing regularly located in the most hazardous urban land - e.g. riverbanks; sandy and degraded soils, near industries and dump sites, in swamps, flood-prone zones and steep slopes - disengaged from broader urban systems and from the formal supply of basic infrastructure and services, including public space and green areas.   Slum dwellers can experience constant discrimination and disadvantage, lack of recognition by governance frameworks, limited access to land and property, tenure insecurity and the threat of eviction, precarious livelihoods, high exposure to disease and violence and, due to slums location, high vulnerability to the adverse impacts of climate change and natural disasters.   Different vulnerable groups living in slums are particularly affected: women are more likely to have lower education levels and face high rates of teen pregnancies, children are constantly exposed to a whole range of impacts, unskilled youth are excluded from economic and employment opportunities, people with disabilities suffer due to the slums dilapidated infrastructure and migrants, refugees and internally displaced persons affected by conflict and economic crisis also face additional levels of vulnerability and marginalisation through their uncertain status and lack of resources.   The living conditions of the people living in slums must be improved and slum proliferation halted. National and local authorities should see these as priority urban tasks for them to address and dedicate efforts not only in pursuit of enforcing the poor citizens rights but also to facilitate their economic and social progress and, as a result, to boost the overall prosperity of cities and towns. Reducing inequalities in the urban context by integrating the people living in slums into the broader urban fabric makes more prosperous and sustainable cities.   * UN Habitat Slum Almanac 2015-2016: http://bit.ly/2tM90k9   The changing face of poverty. (World Vision)   Our world is rapidly urbanising - now more than half of the world's population live in urban centres. These patterns are accelerating - more than 60% of the world will be urban citizens by the year 2050.   World Vision, like many aid and development organisations, once worked mostly in rural areas. But the state of global poverty has changed. Our commitment is to work with the most vulnerable children and communities and these days, many of them are in cities.   As of 2012, more than one billion children - almost half of the world's children - live in cities, millions of them in slum conditions.   It is estimated that an additional one billion people will live in informal slum communities in 2030. This is the urbanisation of poverty.   Urban inequality remains an endemic and worsening phenomenon. Across the globe we see high levels of urban poverty, unemployment and slum dwelling, contrasting with wealthy shopping districts in the city centre and gated communities in the suburbs.   Often we think that proximity to services like schools, medical care, shops and public transport automatically translates to access to these essential services. Unfortunately, for the urban poor proximity doesn't automatically equal access. People living in poverty in urban areas all around the world can be unable to enrol in schools, access medical care or find stable and safe employment.   Unlike in rural areas, the main challenge is not the physical distance between families and these facilities but social, political and financial barriers that prevent them from using them.   People living in urban areas may live with: Overcrowded living conditions. Lack of access to clean water - or having to pay very expensive rates to buy it from a private water seller. A lack of proper sanitation and hygiene facilities. High rates and spread of disease - slums are often inundated during monsoons leading to urban flooding and the very high risk of epidemic diseases.   Pollution, garbage and waste in the streets, a lack of government services means that waste piles up in slums, encouraging the breeding of disease carrying pests like rats and feral cats.   Child labour and trafficking - children as young as six or eight can be forced to work long hours in dangerous jobs to support the living expenses in urban centres. Other hazards can include road traffic injuries; sexual abuse; higher levels of violence, high crime rates and gang violence. http://bit.ly/2ePkk8A   The Plight of Slums - Global Food Policy Report 2017 (IFPRI - Extract)   Slums are settlements characterized by inadequate access to safe water, sanitation, and infrastructure; nondurable and over-crowded housing; and insecure residential status.   Slums are often set up on dangerous and unclaimed land, and residents do not pay property taxes that would cover public services such as electricity, water and sanitation, and waste disposal.   Given the threat of eviction, slum dwellers often lack incentive to invest personally in housing quality improvements or sanitation and waste and sewage disposal infrastructure, which in turn may have devastating consequences for their health.   In 2014, 881 million people lived in slums in the developing world, an increase from 689 million in 1990. In India, 17 percent of urban dwellers, or 65 million people, live in slums. In Peru, 34 percent of the urban population lives in slums. In Uganda, the proportion skyrockets to 54 percent.   By 2030, the number of slum residents in low and middle-income countries is projected to reach 2 billion, with most living in Africa and Asia and in smaller cities.   This extraordinary growth prompted the United Nations to devote a target of Sustainable Development Goal 11, which focuses on improving cities, to upgrading slums.   Life in slums is characterized by overcrowding, indoor and outdoor air pollution, dusty roads, and lack of water, sanitation, and sewage infrastructure, all of which expose residents to a plethora of environmental health risks.   Water and food contamination and related infections are particularly common, and affect children disproportionately. Young children living in slums have a greater incidence of diarrheal illnesses and a higher risk of mortality than their non-slum urban peers.   Systematic reviews of cholera outbreaks in Africa have sourced them to slum neighborhoods.   Exclusive breastfeeding, which offers protection from infections in young infants, was found to be low in slums in India, due to myths and low utilization of health services.   Childhood undernutrition is also higher in slums compared with other urban areas, fueling the vicious cycle of poverty and infection and increasing the risks of long-term consequences for cognitive development, economic productivity, overweight and obesity, and related noncommunicable diseases.   Respiratory health - affected by overcrowding, indoor and outdoor air pollution, and secondhand smoke is also greatly compromised among slum dwellers. Pneumonia and asthma are prevalent among children, as are tuberculosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary and lung diseases in adulthood.   Other health hazards affecting slum dwellers include injury due to violence and traffic accidents; flooding and landslides due to lack of infrastructure; industrial pollution and hazardous waste; fire; and stress associated with overcrowding and sharing a physical and social environment.   Despite the growing awareness of slums, there is a dearth of government policies and interventions directed at regularizing tenure and improving slum dwellers health. Slum health should be accorded policy and research attention in its own right, distinct from the areas of urban health and poverty and health.   * Source: The History, Geography, and Sociology of Slums and the Health Problems of People Who Live in Slums, Lancet online (October 16, 2016) From Chapter 3: Food Security and Nutrition: http://bit.ly/2tLUSHF   June 2017   Who can we trust to measure urban poverty?, by Sarah Colenbrander. (IIED)   International definitions of the poverty line don't take into the account the additional costs of living in cities. Sarah Colenbrander says the urban poor can help institutions such as the United Nations and the World Bank develop accurate, local, definitions of urban poverty.   The World Bank held its Annual Bank Conference on Africa in June. Africa remains the most rural continent, but it is experiencing extraordinary rates of urbanisation: the United Nations expects Africa's urban population to triple by mid-century. Only Asia is experiencing faster rates of urban growth.   By mid-century, towns and cities on these two continents will need to absorb an additional 2.25 billion people. Governments across Asia and Africa will require international support to meet the needs of this growing urban population.   The United Nations and World Bank will be among those at the forefront of these efforts, in line with their own mandates to end extreme poverty.   The only problem is the way that their definition of poverty excludes many of the world's poorest people.   What does it mean to be poor? Most can answer easily: not being able to afford enough food, a safe home, clean drinking water, health care and other basic needs.   The amount of money a person needs also depends on where they live. The World Bank has set the international poverty line at US$1.90 per person per day. This poverty line is based on the cost of food across a number of low-income countries. It might be an appropriate indicator for people living in rural areas in these countries.   But it doesn't recognise the need to pay for non-food needs, such as accommodation or drinking water. In other words, the international poverty line does not recognise that anyone might live in a city.   Cities are booming. India is projected to add 404 million urban residents by 2050; Nigeria is projected to add 212 million. This makes it more important than ever that the World Bank recognises the additional costs of living in cities.   The best way to do this would be developing local poverty lines, based on the real cost of getting decent housing, basic services and secure tenure in an area. Local poverty lines would allow governments and development agencies to identify where poor people live and channel aid to them.   It isn't that difficult to measure local costs. The United Nations recognises that in Kenya, hotels in Nairobi cost more than those in Katui or Mwingi, and recommends higher per diems and stipends for its staff in this part of the country. Development practitioners must demand as much economic rigour in our poverty assessments as we do in our per diem calculations.   Because of the different costs of different places, measuring income is a weak way to evaluate poverty. A better metric is whether or not households have access to safe, reliable and affordable services.   In my view, the United Nations has a poor track record in urban areas. The World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNICEF are the main agencies responsible for measuring access to drinking water and sanitation. They collect data on the number of people with access to an:   "Improved water source": piped water into a dwelling/yard/plot, public tap or standpipe, tube well, borehole, protected dug well, protected spring or rainwater, and "Improved sanitation": flush toilet, piped sewer system, septic tank, flush/pour to pit latrine, ventilated improved pit latrine, pit latrine with slab or composting toilet.   These water sources and sanitation systems will usually be sufficient in rural areas. However, it is difficult to empty pit latrines in a hygienic way when people live in high numbers on small house plots - as they typically do in cities. The latrines may even overflow during heavy rainfall, meaning that boreholes, tube wells and dug wells may be contaminated with faecal matter.   Many urban households may therefore have access to an "improved" water source, but that doesn't mean that the water is safe to drink.   The United Nations routinely underestimates how many people lack access to clean drinking water or hygienic sanitation. This means that many UN agencies overlook the urban poor when advocating to governments or planning development programmes.   From Accra to Ahmedabad and Mumbai to Manila, organised groups of the urban poor are collecting extraordinarily detailed data on life in informal settlements. These community-led enumerations record how many people live in each household, what amenities they have, where they came from, where they work, how much they earn, how much they can save, how much the land costs and more. This vital evidence could be used to develop local poverty lines.   The Homeless People''s Federation Philippines, for example, has used community-generated data to map households living in hazardous areas such as roadsides, steep hills or floodplains.   The National Community Savings Network in Cambodia has documented the low-quality food available in informal settlements, meaning that many of the residents struggle with serious malnutrition.   The members of these grassroots organisations might earn more than $1.90 a day, but many are still chronically poor and vulnerable to a wide range of risks.   If the World Bank and the United Nations are serious about reducing poverty, they need to know where the poor can be found. Their current measurements can't tell us that, but the urban poor can.   http://www.iied.org/who-can-we-trust-measure-urban-poverty   The Urban Disadvantage:   Save the Children is publishing its 16th annual State of the World's Mothers report with a special focus on our rapidly urbanizing world and the poorest mothers and children who must struggle to survive despite overall urban progress.   Every day, 17,000 children die before reaching their fifth birthday. Increasingly, these preventable deaths are occurring in city slums, where overcrowding and poor sanitation exist alongside skyscrapers and shopping malls. Lifesaving health care may be only a stone's throw away, but the poorest mothers and children often cannot get the care they need.   This report presents the latest and most extensive analysis to date of health disparities between rich and poor in cities. It finds that in most developing countries, the poorest urban children are at least twice as likely to die as the richest urban children. In some countries, they are 3 to 5 or even more times as likely to die.   * Link to report: http://bit.ly/1IK4H82   Putting Children First in an Urban World, by Anthony Lake Executive Director, UNICEF.   When many of us think of the world's poorest children, the image that comes readily to mind is that of a child going hungry in a remote rural community in sub-Saharan Africa, as so many are today.   But as The State of the World's Children 2012 shows with clarity and urgency, millions of children in cities and towns all over the world are also at risk of being left behind. In fact, hundreds of millions of children today live in urban slums, many without access to basic services.   They are vulnerable to dangers ranging from violence and exploitation to the injuries, illnesses and death that result from living in crowded settlements atop hazardous rubbish dumps or alongside railroad tracks. And their situations and needs are often represented by aggregate figures that show urban children to be better off than their rural counterparts, obscuring the disparities that exist among the children of the cities.   This report adds to the growing body of evidence and analysis, from UNICEF and our partners, that scarcity and dispossession afflict the poorest and most marginalized children and families disproportionately. It shows that this is so in urban centres just as in the remote rural places we commonly associate with deprivation and vulnerability.   The data are startling. By 2050, 70 per cent of all people will live in urban areas. Already, 1 in 3 urban dwellers lives in slum conditions; in Africa, the proportion is a staggering 6 in 10. The impact on children living in such conditions is significant. From Ghana and Kenya to Bangladesh and India, children living in slums are among the least likely to attend school. And disparities in nutrition separating rich and poor children within the cities and towns of sub-Saharan Africa are often greater than those between urban and rural children.   Every disadvantaged child bears witness to a moral offense: the failure to secure her or his rights to survive, thrive and participate in society. And every excluded child represents a missed opportunity, because when society fails to extend to urban children the services and protection that would enable them to develop as productive and creative individuals, it loses the social, cultural and economic contributions they could have made.   We must do more to reach all children in need, wherever they live, wherever they are excluded and left behind. If we help overcome the barriers that have kept these children from the services that they need and that are theirs by right, then millions more will grow up healthy, attend school and live more productive lives.   * Access the report: http://uni.cf/2tMek7e   State of the World's Children 2016: A fair chance for every child: http://uni.cf/2pxTyEC   June 2017   Globally, the fires of inequality rage on, by Jaideep Gupte (IDS)   The global economy is not only complex, it is brutal. With just 600 cities accounting for the majority of global GDP, people are arguing that it is not nation states, but global cities driving the world economy. However, to enable this city-centric view, the world economy has become remarkably exclusionary, with devastating consequences even for those who think they are not vulnerable. The fire at Grenfell Tower in London brings home the deep inequalities and class struggle that underwrite the global housing crisis.   The UN's special rapporteur on the right to housing, Leilani Farha, recently pointed out that the world's money markets have priced people out of cities, with speculators treating housing as a place to park capital. What's worse, is that the structure of land and property markets are such that they reward and reinforce this behaviour. There is constant pressure on local, municipal and building regulations to ease up to make way for investor friendly cities.   At the same time, popular opinion is swayed by a coarse weighing-up between social housing on the one hand, and wealth generation on the other. Lest we forget, the former is a basic human right, while the latter is something we should all have a stake in.   In the case of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, it is suspected (but as yet unconfirmed) that cheaper cladding material used, and a disregard of fire safety regulations may have been responsible for the rapid spread of the fire. The tower stands in Kensington and Chelsea, one of the most affluent boroughs in London (and the country), and the victims who were from refugee, working class and ethnic minority backgrounds, lived right next to millionaires and billionaires.   Renowned economist, Thomas Piketty has shown us that inequality makes us all worse off. And yet, as Saskia Sassen points out in her new book titled 'Expulsion', the new global market for land, and the triumph of finance capital, continues to displace a dramatically increased number of people.   This has lead to a rise in homelessness due to foreclosures and underemployment, and causing the criminalisation or incarceration of people as a form of social control.   One in four people are worried about losing their home against their will in the next five years revealed a survey of nine countries. Simply put: people are being expelled at historically remarkable levels, not only from their habitats, but also from the benefits of the global economic system.   The poorest and most marginalised urban residents in the cities of the global South, who live in squatter settlements and in constant fear of their home and their bodies being subjected to the violence of eviction (like the recent fires and brutal eviction in the Otodo Gbame informal settlement in Lagos, Nigeria), find themselves both in the crosshairs of the legal instruments used to formalise urban space, as well as at the mercy of local gangs and non-state security providers who are often deployed to carry out evictions on the state's behalf.   The actors may be different in the cities of the global North, but the process by which global capital trumps local regulation while the under classes are persecuted, is the same.   Reportedly, the Kensington and Chelsea council has built just ten new social homes in the last 28 years.   We must ask why some of us have safety nets, while others fall through. Why do a very small number of us benefit from the markets for land and property, while the vast majority are at a constant risk of being decimated by the vicissitudes of global financial flows that we have no control over.   One way to start answering these questions is to train our sights on local and municipal regulations. We need to ensure these do not perpetuate global inequality locally. We need to ensure that our attempts at generating wealth also champion our basic human rights at the local level.   In Lagos, the community has had to vocalise their demands for equal rights through public protests. In London, the residents of Grenfell Tower tried to repeatedly raise their concerns about dangerous living conditions. Their complaints appear to have fallen on deaf ears and many are calling the tragic fire on 14 June a man-made disaster. The fire-fighters, rescue workers and community volunteers were the heroes on the night; but who will douse the fire of inequality that rages on?   http://www.ids.ac.uk/opinion/globally-the-fires-of-inequality-rage-on http://www.ids.ac.uk/idsresearch/urbanisation http://bit.ly/2u0UIrd http://bit.ly/2v0kBfb http://knowyourcity.info/ http://knowyourcity.info/blog/ http://www.wiego.org/blog/nothing-us-without-us-participatory-processes-and-new-urban-agenda http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/presscenter/pressreleases/2017/03/21/world-s-most-marginalized-still-left-behind.html http://www.urban-response.org/ http://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/10/governments-are-criminalizing-homeless-people-to-distract-from-their-own-failures/
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