In 2008, for the first time in history, more than half of the world’s population lived in urban areas. Of that urban population, almost a third, or 924 million people, live in slums—a 2,500-fold increase from 35 million slum dwellers in 1957. While the causes behind these massive demographic shifts are complex, including both the ‘push’ of rural poverty and the ‘pull’ of potential employment in many cities, the difficult reality is that most slum dwellers live in deplorable conditions and abject poverty.

As the numbers of people living in slums continues to rise, it imperils already limited access to housing, water, sanitation, solid waste management, transportation, employment, health care, law enforcement and environmental protection. In India, more than 158 million people live in urban slums and other informal settlements, which accounts for more than 15 percent of the country’s population and 55 percent of the urban population. In Ghana, almost five million people live in slums, which represents almost a quarter of the entire population, and 70 percent of urban residents.

Though separated by thousands of miles and shaped by different social, political and economic forces, the slum communities of India and Ghana experience similar deficiencies: poor integration into the urban fabric; lack of physical and social infrastructure services; and social, economic and political exclusion and marginalization. History has shown that the responsibility for bridging the gap between government programs and their intended beneficiaries cannot be left either to local governments or slum dwellers alone. The answer has to come from the middle— from Local Intermediaries (LI) with an interest in providing quality services and the capacity to strengthen community-based organizations in slum neighborhoods that can work with local governments, while implementing slum upgrading and social service programs.

Private service providers have also shown promise in developing sustainable models for delivering affordable services to the urban poor. It is in this context that CHF International launched the Slum Communities Achieving Livable Environments with Urban Partners (SCALE-UP) program in India and Ghana, with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.