Annan wants Kenya’s slums sorted out, pronto
Former UN head Kofi Annan wants Kenya to speed up the improvement of living conditions in Nairobi's squalid slums. Annan was instrumental in getting politicians to agree to a coalition government that ended post-election violence between late 2007 and early 2008. The violence saw about 1,300 people killed and another 300,000 left homeless. The slums became battlegrounds with their huge numbers of marginalised youths and diverse ethnic make-up. They lack sufficient clean drinking water and have little sanitation. The biggest of the lot is Kibera, which is home to nearly a million people, squeezed into 250 hectares of land. Annan reckons continued resettlement of people from tin and mud shanties into apartment-style housing will improve their health and boost the economy. Kibera is Africa's biggest slum, with an estimated 2 million of Nairobi’s 4 million people living in such conditions. Read more: Reuters
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