Urban Poor and Hungry Burgeoning Unnoticed

[G_j]

http://www.stwr.org/health-education-shelter/urban-poor-and-hungry-burgeoning-unnoticed.html

Urban Poor and Hungry Burgeoning Unnoticed

The number of poor and food-insecure people in developing countries is increasing more quickly in urban areas than in rural areas, and could be dropping off the policy radar, says a report by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

14th July 09 - UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)

Link to report: Food Security Assessment 2008-2009 - USDA, June 09

"Poverty is still viewed by many as a rural problem, as both governments and donors continue to allocate resources to rural development in order to reverse the bias of urban policies of the 1970s and 1980s," Shahla Shapouri and Stacey Rosen, researchers in the department's Economic Research Services, write in the USDA's Food Security Assessment 2008-09.

In 2008, when the food crisis focused greater attention on agriculture and development in rural areas, for the first time in history more than half the world's population lived in urban areas, the researchers said, citing UN Population Fund (UNFPA) statistics.

By 2030 the majority of people in all developing countries will live in urban areas, and UNFPA estimates that about 60 percent of the urban slum population will be under the age of 18. "This realization has not yet translated into policy action in most countries," Shapouri and Rosen noted.

Sub-Saharan African countries have the world's highest rates of urban growth and highest levels of urban poverty, according to the State of the World's Cities Report 2006/07 by UN-Habitat, the UN human settlements programme. The slum population in these countries doubled from 1990 to 2005, when it reached 200 million.

..more..

[virgogal]

1. Urban poverty goes right along with the end of agrarianism and

the growth of industrialisation--------always has,always will.

[KoKo]

2. Thanks for the post...k&r.