Both developed and less developed countries are becoming increasingly urbanized. Overall, a billion people, a third of people living in urban areas, live in slums, where environmental determinants lead to disease. Although communicable diseases predominate in the developing world and have reemerged in the developed world, non communicable diseases are also growing disproportionately in the developing world. At a global level, the Millennium Development Goals explicitly focus on an integrated approach to slum upgrading. It is argued that to improve health and well-being in the slums we need to have interventions that reduce urban poverty in the broadest sense and improve the deficiencies associated with slums. There is an urgent need to scale up the best-practice interventions.

The world is increasingly becoming urban. By 2015, the target date for attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), it is estimated that more than half the world will live in urban areas, the majority in developing countries. By 2030, it is predicted that two-thirds of people will be living in cities.

Again we see the need of combating civil wars, one of the biggest contributors to the cycle of poverty and displacement. Like most refugees who are often fleeing for their lives from persecution, torture, and murder, the last concern to them is whether progress is being made on a set of UN-sponsored development initiatives. Anyone caught in a crisis situation, whether it is natural disaster, political upheaval, or the threat of ethnic murder, has basic needs that must be met such as shelter, food and water, and safety. Everything else is secondary.

But achieving the MDGs by 2015 will mean a better life for all people caught in a cycle of poverty and displacement. Though refugees are not mentioned explicitly by any one of the Goals, their interests are at the heart of each one.

The MDG Review will again will again use its influence on behalf of all affected to bring their plight to the stakeholders

More on the subject from case studies submitted by some of our partners in the sector