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(Composite indicator of share of people living in slums, informal settlements or inadequate housing.

The nature of the housing sector with its institutions, laws and regulations, is one that touches every single aspect of the economy of a country and has interface with practically every social development sector. People living in adequate homes have better health, higher chances to improve their human capital and seize the opportunities available in urban contexts.  A housing sector that performs well acts as a ‘development multiplier’ benefiting complementary industries, contributing to economic development, employment generation, service provision and overall poverty reduction. The contributions of housing to urban prosperity are also evident. The UN-Habitat City Prosperity Initiative reveals indicates that inadequate housing has negative effects on several other dimensions of urban prosperity. Urban contexts with housing conditions below average experience poorer equity and inclusion, reduced urban safety and livelihood opportunities, and have neglected connectivity and provision of public space.

Every 3-5 years

Percentage (%)

Inadequate housing  remains a global urban sustainability challenge very much but also development opportunity. At the same time, the thematic area of ‘adequate housing’ and especially the term ‘slums’ - are often highly politicized. More nuanced definitions of these terms would enable and support a more robust and measured debate, greater engagement by all key stakeholders and the development of specific recommendations for application within each context and place. 

Affordability issue is affecting the developing and developed worlds alike. In Latin America, high house price-to-income ratio and inaccessible housing finance compel households to resort to informal solutions without the benefits of planning and safety regulations. In many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, less than 10 per cent of households are able to afford a mortgage for even the cheapest newly built house. In fact, African households face 55 per cent higher housing costs relative to their per capita GDP than in other regions. In many European countries, families, especially the youth, are severely cost burdened and have much less to spend on other necessities such as food, health, transport and clothing. In extreme circumstances, households are forced to leave their accommodation because of the inability to pay. The current migration crisis has worsened housing conditions in the region, a trend that seems set to continue in the next few years.

Today, an estimated 1.6 billion people live in inadequate housing globally, of which 1 billion live in slums and informal settlements. This means that about one in four people in cities live in conditions that harm their health, safety, prosperity and opportunities. Lack of access to basic services is a common constraint in informal settlements and slums: worldwide 2.4 billion people live without improved sanitation and 2 billion are affected by water stress. In spite of a decrease from 39 to 30 per cent of urban population living in slums between 2000 and 2014, absolute numbers continue to grow: currently, one quarter of the world’s urban population is estimated to live in slums, 881 million urban residents as opposed to 792 million in 2000.  Young women- and children-headed households are often the most vulnerable to inadequate housing conditions. Homelessness is also a growing challenge and it is estimated that more than 100 million people worldwide are homeless.

The agreed definition classified a ‘slum household’ as one in which the inhabitants suffer one or more of the following ‘household deprivations’:

1. Lack of access to improved water source,
2. Lack of access to improved sanitation facilities,
3. Lack of sufficient living area,
4. Lack of housing durability and,
5. Lack of security of tenure. By extension, the term ‘slum dweller’ refers to a person living in a household that lacks any of the above attributes.

Informal Settlements – Informal settlements are usually seen as synonymous of slums, with a particular focus on the formal status of land, structure and services. These are:

1. Inhabitants have no security of tenure vis-à-vis the land or dwellings they inhabit, with modalities ranging from squatting to informal rental housing,
2. The neighbourhoods usually lack, or are cut off from, formal basic services and city infrastructure, and
3. The housing may not comply with current planning and building regulations, is often situated in geographically and environmentally hazardous areas, and may lack a municipal permit.

Inadequate Housing For housing to be adequate, it must provide more than four walls and a roof, and at a minimum, meet the following criteria:

1. Legal security of tenure, which guarantees legal protection against forced evictions, harassment and other threats;
2. Availability of services, materials, facilities and infrastructure, including safe drinking water, adequate sanitation, energy for cooking, heating, lighting, food storage or refuse disposal;
3. Affordability, as housing is not adequate if its cost threatens or compromises the occupants’ enjoyment of other human rights;
4. Habitability, as housing is not adequate if it does not guarantee physical safety or provide adequate space, as well as protection against the cold, damp, heat, rain, wind, other threats to health and structural hazards;
5. Accessibility, as housing is not adequate if the specific needs of disadvantaged and marginalized groups are not taken into account (such as the poor, people facing discrimination; persons with disabilities, victims of natural disasters);
6. Location, as housing is not adequate if it is cut off from employment opportunities, health-care services, schools, childcare centres and other social facilities, or if located in dangerous or polluted sites or in immediate proximity to pollution sources; and
7. Cultural adequacy, as housing is not adequate if it does not respect and take into account the expression of cultural identity and ways of life.

Potential Disaggregation:

• Disaggregation by location (intra-urban);
• Disaggregation by income group;
• Disaggregation by sex, race, ethnicity, religion, migration status (head of household);
• Disaggregation by age (household members);
• Disaggregation by disability (household members).

Quantifiable Derivatives:

• Proportion of households with durable housing;
• Proportion of households with improved water;
• Proportion of households with improved sanitation;
• Proportion of households with enough living space;
• Proportion of households with security of tenure;
• Proportion of households with one (1) housing deprivation;
• Proportion of households with multiple (3 or more) housing deprivations;
• Proportion of households with approved municipal permit;
• Proportion of households with (in) adequate housing (affordability).

This indicator can be calculated using the following formulas:

Slum/Informal Settlements households (SISH) = (𝑁𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛 𝑆𝐼𝑆𝐻 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑒ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑑𝑠) / (𝐶𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑝𝑜𝑝𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛) * 100

Inadequate housing households (IHH) = (𝑁𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛 𝐼𝐻𝐻) / (𝐶𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑝𝑜𝑝𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛) *100

The indicator is used to measure the proportion of urban population living in slums, informal settlements or inadequate housing.

• Difficulties to agree universally on some definitions and characteristics when referring to deteriorated housing conditions, often due to political or economic considerations.
• Lack of appropriate tools at national and city levels to measure all components required by Indicator 11.1.1, sometimes resulting in the underestimation of deteriorated housing units.
• The complicated relation between security of tenure with land and property makes it a difficult, but vital, aspect to include in the different surveys, and thus, to measure and monitor. 
•  Indicator 11.1.1 does not capture homelessness.
•  Many countries still have limited capacities for data collection, management and analysis, their update and monitoring. These are key to ensure national and global data consistency.

To develop a more nuanced definition, there are several interrelated terms that must be grappled with when considering an indicator for the SDG Target 11.1. They include inadequate housing and housing affordability, informal settlements and slums.

 All the metadata shown in this document was gathered from United Nation Statistics Division. The metadata was extracted from https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/.