The Study of Slum Definitions, its Demographic Characteristic and Distribution Patterns in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

Abstract

To achieve a better and more sustainable future for all, it is necessary to accomplish sustainable development goals (SDGs) by 2030. Among these goals, some of them are associated with slums and upgrading their status. Evidence-based development policies and programs are recommended for achieving developmental goals and for this purpose data along with their distribution pattern are the key components.  The objective of this study is to present different slum definitions used in Nepal, and   to make an update on the existing data about the slums inside the Kathmandu Valley and to explore their distribution. To accomplish this, published documents as well as secondary data about slums were collected and they were further verified and updated. Different names were found to be commonly used as a synonym for the slum. The total number of slum settlements inside the valley was found to be 65 with a total number of households 4,696 a total population of 28,412 having a total male population of 14,829 (52.20%), and a total female population of 13,583 (47.80%). The distribution of slums across different wards inside the Valley was explored and was found to be over dispersed Poisson distribution revealing that slum settlements are widely dispersed among different local level administrative units (wards) inside the valley, and further, a large variation on the number of households, population size, and average household size were found among those slum settlements. Due to these, it is challenging for the government to address the biggest deprivations of the slum communities’ people to improve their living conditions and maintaining appropriate state of harmony in the Valley.