Slum population may top 3b mark by 2050: UN

Urging global action to fight poverty, if not the seemingly unstoppable migration of people from rural areas to cities, the UN housing agency, Habitat, said the growth of slums was a key risk to public health and development.

"The core problem facing the international community is our continuing failure to come to grips with the world's slums," Habitat Chief Anna Tibaijuka said as she opened a week-long meeting of the agency's governing board here.