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This paper locates the development of girls schooling and the promotion of gender equality through schooling (the subject of MDG Goal 3) within the context of the ambition to have achieved by 2011, a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers (MDG Goal 7). This increasing level of urbanisation is associated with global warming and climate change and the destruction of agricultural livelihoods and consequent family breakdown brought on by economic globalisation - but it is also associated with the liberalisation of economies and increasing migration into cities encouraged by structural adjustment programmes. Davis' famous book (2007) The Planet of Slums captures global concerns about the increasing number of people living in urban slums globally, especially their unsustainable lives in conditions of extreme poverty and overcrowding. However there is also increasing worry about the effects of such conditions on women's lives and livelihoods. As Kiwala, Masuad and Njenga (2009) point out, climate change is not gender neutral - slum dwelling has particular consequences for women arguably making them even more vulnerable and lacking in security. This paper places the promotion of girls' schooling and indeed the struggle to achieve gender equality within these environmental concerns about urbanisation and slum life, but also the effects of the associated rise in crime and violence particularly amongst youth living in such settings.
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