Urban Slums…

A Challenge for the

21st Century

Imagine…

… you lived on rubble …

… in a makeshift shack …

… in a cardboard box …

… by the railroad tracks …

… employed on a garbage dump ...

… with

eyes fixed on a

future

of …

… hard work and survival

One out of six people live in

such conditions.

One out of six. One out of six. One out of six. One out of

six.

The Dimensions of the Challenge

Urban Growth

Every week urban areas gain another 1.3 million people.

That’s 67 million people per year.36 million of them end up in slums

=100,000 new slum dwellers per

day

By 2025, over 60% of the world’s population are

expected to live in urban areas.

That means the size of urban dwellers will be double the size of rural

populations.

That means the size of urban dwellers will be double the size of rural

populations.

In 2000, there were 388 cities in the world with 1 million or more residents.

By 2015, there will be a projected 554 such cities. Of these, 426 will be in developing countries.

Urbanization by Region

Africa will have to accommodate an additional 200 million people in its cities within the next 15 years

In Asia an additional 590 million people will live in urban areas within

the next 15 years

93% of the world’s additional urban population will live in cities of the less developed

world.

The challenge of coping with massive urban

population growth, thus, is greatest for the countries least able to

meet it.

Growth – it follows –

won’t happen here…

… but

HERE.

Unsurprisingly, population growth rates in slums are

higher than in virtually any other environment in the

world

The Indian urban scenario has been aptly summarized as the 2-3-4-5 syndrome.

In the last decade, as India’so annual average

population growth rate was 2%

o urban India grew at 3%

o mega cities at 4% o and slum populations

rose by 5%

In 2003, the number of slum dwellers was estimated at 1 billion.

Projections show that 2 billion people will be living in slums by 2030.

That would be almost 1 out of every 4 persons

“Slums are places where

hunger prevails, and where young people are drawn into anti-social behavior, including crime and

terrorism, for lack of better alternatives.” Executive Director Anna Tibaijuka,United Nations Human Settlements

Program (UN HABITAT)

“Urban poverty will be the most significant and politically explosive problem of this century”

World Bank

The way we respond to it will largely determine the future of our world!

Urban Slums The fastest-growing

mission field

Despite this new reality, most Christian NGOs and mission organizations still concentrate their efforts in rural areas and mid-sized towns.

In 2004, World Vision, for example, still focused only 17% of its work on urban agglomerations.

As cities grow, hence, the percentage of urban Christians is declining.

1900 1925 1950 1975 20060

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

In 1900, Christians numbered 69% of urban dwellers.

By 2008, that figure dropped to 36%.

“Although the center of evangelical Christianity has shifted to the Two-Thirds world, the great

surge of missions outreach in the 20th century largely passed by the burgeoning urban population of the

non-Western world.”

Operation World

The Church often

remains irrelevant and inward-focused in

the exploding cities of the Two-Thirds

World.

“Yet, slums present a huge opportunity for holistic human development and the growth of the Church, but the little that is being done is insufficient at best…. If the Church wants to be where the unreached are, we need to be focusing our attention on urban centers, particularly in the developing world. Since squatters and slum-dwellers constitute an immense people group, we must make the urban poor the primary thrust of missions.”

Viv Grigg, Director, Urban Leadership Foundation

Domestic violence, poverty, systemic

injustice and spiritual emptiness

cripple the God-given potential of

hundreds of millions of families

living in slums around the world.

Their plight cries out.

How do we respond?

What does Jesus’ teaching

mean for us today in this global context?