Redefining slums in Egypt: Unplanned versus unsafe areas

This paper addresses the crucial need to revisit the criteria for defining ‘slums’ in order to present a more precise image of existing slums and categorize them according to the severity of risk they pose to human life and to property, as a means of prioritizing interventions. It reflects on the Egyptian initiative, started at the outset of 2009, to solve the problematic issue of defining what are called ‘slums’, or ‘informal settlements’, or ‘Ashwa’iyyat’, by replacing them with two distinctive terms; ‘unplanned areas’ and ‘unsafe areas’. This approach is considered to underpin the identification of priorities for intervention and drawing up policies and strategies for improving slums’ conditions and the lives of their inhabitants. The paper sheds light on the findings from a survey carried out by the Informal Settlement Development Facility (ISDF) in the period from February to May 2009. This attempted, for the first time to identify unsafe and unplanned areas spatially in all the urban centres in Egypt and classify the former according to degrees of risk based on certain criteria set by the ISDF. The results show substantial discrepancies between previous statistics concerning the size of slums and the more recently produced ones. Areas which are considered unsafe are estimated to contain 1.1 million inhabitants, represents the number of people in great need of immediate action to improve their living conditions. Such statistics would change the position of Egypt on the world map of slums.