Climate change to hit slum dwellers hard, says report

By Ally Jamah

Climate change will hit urban slum dwellers in Kenya and other sub-Sahara African cities harder.

A new report by the World Health Organisation (WHO), says millions of slum dwellers will have more difficulty accessing safe drinking water and for sanitation.

"If not properly managed, this situation is likely to increase the likelihood of water-borne diseases like cholera, dysentery, which might result in thousands of deaths," said Mr Brodie Ramin, who compiled the report.

Climate change is expected to cause frequent and intense droughts in Kenya and the region, significantly reducing supply of water to cities.

Currently, 60 per cent of Nairobi’s four million residents live in slums and have no reliable access to clean water. The situation is projected to worsen in the next few years.

Children in the slums will be hit harder, worsening the health statistics. Currently, child mortality in Nairobi slums is 2.5 times greater than in other areas.

The report says drought in rural areas would increase cases of malnutrition due to falling agricultural output and rising prices of essential foods.

Malnutrition levels

In Kenya, rates of child malnutrition in urban slums and rural areas is already high at about 40 per cent.

Drought in rural areas may be a major trigger for migration to urban areas, further increasing the number of slum dwellers.

Urban slum dwellers will also suffer severely from flooding due to occasional extreme rains. The urban poor build houses of weak, inadequate materials, often against hillsides vulnerable to landslides during heavy rains.

The report says high rates of urbanisation and slum development may make it more challenging for governments to cope with the problem.

Although sub-Saharan Africa is the least urbanised with only 40 per cent of the region’s population living in cities, estimates show the region’s urban population is projected to more than double to 760 million by 2030.

A recent paper in the New England Journal of Medicine argued, "rapid urbanisation in African cities like Nairobi, threatens a humanitarian disaster in terms of access to health and nutrition."