WaterAid Senior Policy Analyst Timeyin Uwejamomere calls on lead agencies including World Bank and UN-HABITAT to reprioritise their water and sanitation expenditure on informal settlements to prevent slum conditions from spreading as urbanisation intensifies.
The 2010 World Disasters Report highlights the "urban risk divide" between wealthy cities like Tokyo and poorer cities like Kathmandu, Manila and Jakarta which would face serious losses in any emergency.
Aware that an earthquake like Haiti's could strike Dhaka, a city seven times more populous, engineers and government leaders in the Bangladeshi capital are discussing how to reinforce buildings and prepare emergency services, to prevent tragedy on an unimaginable scale.
As coastal and delta cities face the impacts of rising sea levels due to climate change, planners are readying with a combination of sea wall solutions, ecological engineering and urban design, which one says will buy us three centuries of security.
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Timeyin Uwejamomere is Senior Policy Analyst for urban water and sanitation services and current Country Representative for Nigeria at WaterAid.
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The Global Urbanist is an online magazine reviewing urban affairs and urban development issues in cities throughout the developed and developing world.
Its readers are drawn from the urban policy and international development sectors, and include urban planners, officers in local, national or international government agencies, civil society leaders, and researchers.
