Water Sanitation Health

Water supply and sanitation monitoring

2012 update: Progress on drinking water and sanitation

March 2012 -- The report contains the welcome announcement that, as of 2010, the target for drinking water has been met. Since 1990, more than 2 billion people have gained access to improved drinking water sources.

Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation

At the end of the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade (1981-1990), WHO and UNICEF established a Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP). The overall aim of the JMP is to report globally on the status of water supply and sanitation sector, and to support countries in improving their monitoring performance to enable better planning and management at the country level. The JMP is the official arrangement within the UN System to produce information for the UN Secretary General on the progress of achieving the Millennium Development Goals related to water supply and sanitation.

Although the JMP has been producing coverage reports since 1990, it was only in 2000 that the JMP statistics were based mainly on data from household surveys such as Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) and World Health Surveys (WHS). The reports listed below (available for downloading) are the latest monitoring reports, all of them based on survey information.

See also