UN Organ Tasks FG On Slum Development

The youth wing of the United Nation’s City Agency (UN Habitat) has urged the Federal Government to provide social amenities in satellite towns and slums growing rapidly in the country.

The Programme Officer, Nigerian Youth Habitat Network, Miss Martina Eteng, who made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Abuja, said because a larger percentage of the Nigerian workforce resided in slums, such areas deserve improved social services and infrastructure.

According to statistics, one billion of the global population resides in sub-standard houses and informal settlements that lack adequate shelter and basic services.

An increasing number of young people around the world are growing up in fast-growing cities of sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Also, an estimated 889 million people across the world will reside in slums and squatter settlements characterised by absence of formal urban planning by 2020.

Globally, young people of between the ages of 15 and 24 years make up 18 per cent of the world’s population and 85 per cent of the world’s young people live in developing countries, where they often comprise a large portion of the communities.

Eteng said it was in line with this research that Nigerian youths joined the World Urban Campaign known as “I’m a City Changer” with support from the Federal Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development.

“Precisely on 18 October, we launched a project called “I’m a City Changer,’’ which is a global movement coordinated by UN Habitat; the programme is a mandate especially as it relates to young urban slum dwellers for reasons we deem fit to partner to actualise the project.

“For the movement and other partners; the goal is to create more awareness for young people and demand feasible government commitment to improving our cities.

“The government has already signed that they are going to make our cities; if you look very well now you will see that there are more slums in the cities than even the cities they are trying to create and you know the lifestyle inside the city does not relate in any way to those who are dwelling in the slums.

“If you go to Kenya, you will notice that they have changed their slums, they try to make the slums habitable because you cannot drive away all these people, she said.