Report for the ODA (UK) on Four Participatory Development Projects in Pakistan
The Urban Scene in Pakistan
Pakistan’s urban population is 37.6 million out of a total population of 115.4 million. Which makes it 32.6 percent of the total population. It is growing at a rate of 4 .8 percent and is expected to be 39 percent of the total population by the year 2001.
The urban sector requires an average of 370,000 housing units per year, for the next five years. However, not even 20 percent of this demand is met by even an element of formal sector involvement and nor does the formal sector have the capacity of meeting this demand. As a result, katchi abadis (squatter settlements) and informal settlements cater to this demand. These settlements are under-serviced and most of them have severe environmental problems. There are approximately 3,000 katchi abadis in Pakistan which have a population of nearly 7 million which is about 22 percent of the total urban population. In addition, over 12 million people live in settlements created out of the informal subdivisions of agricultural land, ecologically unsafe areas or wasteland on the city fringes. Thus 58 percent of Pakistan’s urban population lives in un-serviced or underserviced areas which are growing at a rate of over 10 percent per year against a total urban growth of 4.8 percent.
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