ABSTRACT
Urbanisation rates are by no means uniform. In regions such as Latin America, which have proportionally large urban populations, the rate of urban growth is slowing, whereas in sub-Saharan Africa rates are high, and in some cases increasing. The impact of the poverty is often all the greater as a result of distance from and inadequacy of services such as health and education, particularly in sparsely populated areas. Since the late 1970s, more and more emphasis has been put on poverty as largely a rural problem. The most obvious, in fact tautological, characteristic of the urban poor is that they live in towns and cities, much closer to one another than do the rural poor. Unlike the rural poor, the urban poor live in an almost entirely monetised economy. Water supply, sewerage and sanitation are natural monopolies and therefore are best undertaken by the public sector. Where public sector has failed to provide these facilities, private sector has moved in.
