Wubit Shiferaw blanches at the smell from the open latrine pit that passes beneath her feet in her Addis Ababa slum dwelling and declares: "The conditions are simply just unbearable."
As tens of thousands of activists gather in the capital of neighbouring Kenya this weekend for the World Social Forum, they are hoping to turn the spotlight on the plight of people like the Shiferaw family who have been left behind by globalisation.
While living standards in the West and emerging Asian powerhouses such as China and India continue to improve in the 21st century, feeble growth rates in much of Africa have mired most of the continent's residents in abject poverty. In Ethiopia, a recent survey found 80 percent of the country's urban population live in slums that fail to meet basic sanitary benchmarks.
The non-governmental organisation Action Professionals' Association for the People (APAP) found the overwhelming majority of housing units in towns and cities were poorly constructed and four-fifths were made out of mud and wood. More than 40 percent have no more than one room while 42 percent lacked toilets and 39 percent were without kitchens.
Wubit, who has been living in the Kera district of Addis Ababa for the last 18 years, has little expectation of an upturn in the future. "It is just hopeless," she says. "Buying or building a house is simply unthinkable for us. We have no choice but to continue living like this.
"The conditions are simply just unbearable. As far as I am concerned, there is no public institution that looks after housing situations." While apartments are springing up in large parts of the Ethiopian capital, they are beyond the price range of most slum-dwellers.
"As condominiums are being built throughout the country, we expected that they would also be available for everyone, including us, the poor. But reality showed otherwise," says Wubit.
Ethiopia is one of the world's poorest countries and depends heavily on international assistance for its budget. Around half of its 72 million people live on less than one dollar a day. Natural disasters such as famine and flooding have diverted funding away from urban areas and officials acknowledge the shortcomings in the housing sector.
"The government is fully aware of the circumstances," said an official at the Addis Ababa city government headquarters who spoke on condition of anonymity. "I can tell you that efforts are well underway to improve the situation through housing maintenance and upgrading."
The APAP highlighted how the vast majority of housing is rented. Around a quarter of all units are owned by local authorities and rented out at rates which have been frozen since July 1975, vastly reducing the potential for income which can be pumped back into housing improvements.
"The government also believes in privatisation of public houses," said the official. "Through such projects, we can alleviate slums and informal settlements," he added.
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