The UN's 3rd World Urban Forum concludes today in Vancouver, Canada (daily bulletins about the Forum available here).

Earlier this week, the Forum was criticised by a former slum-dweller, Jockin Arputham, President of India's National Slum Dwellers Federation -- who said that delegates were more keen on writing reports than ending poverty.

Arputham said that water and sanitation were chief among the concerns of slum dwellers. Laveesh Bhandari and Aarti Khare recently wrote about water and sanitation in urban India, in my book The Water Revolution. They show that informal entrepreneurs are, to some extent, addressing the artificial water scarcity prevalent in slums in New Delhi.