Picture credit: A Nigerian migrant eats as other evacuees line up for food at a refugee camp near the Libyan and Tunisian border crossing of Ras Jdir, after fleeing unrest in Libya, March 22, 2011. Picture taken March 22, 2011. REUTERS/Anis Mili

STOCKHOLM (AlertNet) - Barbara Frost, chief executive of WaterAid spoke to AlertNet at World Water Week in Stockholm where 2,600 policymakers and humanitarians are meeting to discuss strains on the water infrastructure in a rapidly urbanising world. 

By 2020, at current rates of growth, at least half the African urban population will be living in informal settlements in chronic water and sanitation poverty, WaterAid reports. 

The agency is working with utility companies to enable affordable access to water and sanitation in poor urban areas, to try and reach the poorest communities.

Credit: Julie Mollins

STOCKHOLM (AlertNet) - Executive director of U.N. Habitat spoke to AlertNet at World Water Week in Stockholm where 2,600 policymakers and humanitarians are meeting to discuss strains on the water infrastructure in a rapidly urbanising world. 

By 2050 city dwellers will make up more than 80 percent of the global population, which by that time is expected to expand to 9.3 billion from about 7 billion, according to the Water Integrity Network (WIN) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

"The next phase is to plan the basic enlargement of the city so that it is affordable for emerging economies, Joan Clos, who is also United Nations under-secretary general, said, "We need to come back to basics."

U.N. Habitat analyses patterns and develops plans for controlled human settlement.

Credit: Julie Mollins