Education and the World’s Slums: What UNICEF is Doing to Make Improvements
More than half of all people and more than one billion children live in urban settings. Seventy percent of the world population by 2050 will live in cities. UNICEF’s “State of the World’s Children Report” offers insight into the conditions of the world’s slums.
UNICEF reports overcrowding and unsanitary conditions in slums to be the cause of rapidly spreading diseases such as pneumonia and diarrhea. Those diseases are two of the biggest killers of children under five years of age in the world. The report says one in three urban residents lives in a slum and one-third of children in urban areas are not registered at birth.
In the slums of Nairobi, Kenya stunting rates among children are three times higher than in urban areas in general. And, in the slums of Bangladesh, mortality rates among children are higher than both rural and urban rates.
An initiative in Mexico provides cash to the poorest families to send their children to school and cover healthcare. This initiative is offered both in rural and urban settings and is being adopted by other countries.
In response to the data collected in the “State of the World’s Children Report”, UNICEF is campaigning for the abolition of medical and educational fees. UNICEF believes that, to facilitate development the barriers to education must be removed.
Creative Commons Love: United Nations Photo on Flickr.com
Written by Marliz Calleja
