Progress in Drinking-water and Sanitation. Special Focus on Sanitation JMP 2008

The WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP) JMP Report. Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation has issued its 2008 update report, "Progress on Drinking-water and Sanitation: special focus on sanitation".  As 2008 is the International Year of Sanitation (IYS) JMP has made sanitation a major focus in this report.

In addition to analysing global progress towards the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target for sanitation and drinking-water, it introduces a new way of assessing global, regional and country progress using the "ladder" concept for both sanitation and drinking-water.  For sanitation, trends in using improved, shared, and unimproved sanitation facilities are shown, in addition to the trend in open defecation.  The drinking-water ladder shows the percentage of global population using piped connections into a dwelling, plot or yard; other improved water sources; and unimproved sources.  The intention is to continue refining the "ladders" in future reports.