Slum development models and strategies tend to assume a needs-based outlook, focusing on what specific slums lack. In this paper, I argue instead for an asset-based approach to slum development, employing insights from the seminal work of Kretzmann and McNight, which rests on the idea that physical, social, human, and other assets can all be brought to bear to improve slums. I engage at a theoretical level the possible uses of land policy, regulation, transfers, taxation, and other specific strategies to promote an asset-based approach to slum development, and then employ the example of the slum of Nima in Ghana to illustrate how an asset-based approach to slum development might work in practice. I argue that the shift to an asset-based approach can produce positive neighborhood effects, enable slums to overcome negative perceptions, and generate additional support for slum redevelopment efforts while seeking to encourage slum dwellers to take co-responsibility for improving their welfare. From this standpoint, the conception of slums as assets is not only part of the process of creating enabling conditions in slums, it is also a diagnostic and analytical framework for identifying effective entry points in slum development programs.

Virtually all major cities of the Global South have slums. From the favelas of Brazil to the Kiberas of Kenya, slums seem to represent an enormous exception to the general progress made in reducing poverty over the decades. And the slum statistics are staggering! According to UN-HABITAT approximately one billion persons in the world live in slums, including over 820 million persons in cities of the Global South.2Furthermore,estimates at the turn of the 21stcentury suggest that by 2025 about 60 percent of the population of countries in the Global South will reside in towns and cities, and significant portions of city residents will live in slums. While there is hardly any immediate relief insight, the slum problem has been described as perhaps, the crucial geo-political event of our time. International development efforts, in response to what is potential if not already an explosive situation, have begun once again to pay close attention to slums in anti-poverty programs.