Like many other Asian cities, more than one third of the urban population in Bangladesh live in congested or slum areas in poverty, said UNFPA Representative Pornchai Suchitta at a press conference marking the launch of the report at the National Press Club in the city.

About 27 percent of the total population live in urban areas of the country, which experienced phenomenal increase in urban population with its projected growth rate of 3.5 percent per year up to 2010, the report said.

The report termed the official position of opposing urban expansion as a failed strategy based on faulty assumptions, saying that such positions often failed to support the non-governmental organisations that ease the process.

"Policymakers generally have been unwilling to accept urban growth and have tried to prevent it by discouraging migration. Such policies are ineffective," said the report titled 'Unleashing the Potential of Urban Growth'.

"Urban migrants are making rational decisions. They need support to escape from poverty and, in the process, contribute to both urban and rural economic growth," Pornchai Suchitta said.

According to the report, in 2008, for the first time in the history, 3.3 billion people, who are more than half of the world population, will be living in urban areas. The number is expected to swell to almost 5 billion by 2030, while in Asia and Africa the urban population will double between 2000 and 2030. Many of these new urbanites will be poor, it noted.

"Their future, the future of cities in the developing countries and the future of humanity itself all depend very much on the decisions made now," Pornchai Suchitta said, adding this is very much appropriate for the South Asian countries, including Bangladesh.

The battle to reach the Millennium Development Goals, halving extreme poverty by 2015, will be waged in the world's slums, the UNFPA representative said, noting that one billion people live in the urban slums and 90 percent of them live in developing countries.

The report that examined implications of impending urban growth with specific attention to poverty reduction and sustainability said most urban growth would be in smaller towns and cities, thereby requiring considerable strengthening of the initiatives to meet the future challenge.

It observed that poor people will make up a large part of urban growth with natural increase rather than migration, and urged the government, civil societies and international communities to abandon attempts to discourage migration and prevent urban growth.

The report called for a broad and long-term vision of the use of urban space. "This means, among other things, providing minimally serviced land for housing and planning in advance to promote sustainable land use, looking beyond the cities' borders to minimise their ecological footprints."

It also called for a concerted international effort to support strategies for the urban poor.

Urging more analysis and pre-emptive actions, the report said the growth of the cities will be the single largest influence on development in the 21st century, yet little is being done to maximise the benefits of urban growth or reduce its harmful consequences.

It observed that poverty is growing faster in urban areas than in the rural areas for not realising the potential advantages in reducing poverty, and neglecting the poor.

The report said that urban life offers many possibilities for women and girls for they can more effectively participate in social and political life, but few in poor households can take advantage of them. It advocated for women's education, reproductive health and creating adequate job opportunities for them.

The report this year was accompanied by a supplement 'Growing Up Urban' featuring the stories of young men and women that focussed on young people's right to live free from violence.

UNFPA Assistant Representatives Nurul Ameen and Tahera Ahmed, foreign ministry official Shamsul Haque and Shimu, a garment worker, who migrated to Dhaka following violence at her village, also spoke at the press conference.