In September 2000, the international community set for itself a series of ambitious Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and attendant targets. This paper takes as its points of departure in particular MDG 7, Target 11: "Achieve, by 2020, a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers", and the commitments made in the Habitat Agenda of 1996. The aim of the paper is to ascertain, to the extent available statistics allow, whether the volume of aid flows for human settlements has increased, decreased or been maintained at a stable level, as the case may be, over the period 1996-2002. For the purpose of this exercise, human settlements are taken to include three key components: water supply, sanitation and shelter.

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