Abstract
The World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), through the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP), are responsible for global monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets for drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). The SDGs represent a fundamental shift in household WASH monitoring with a new focus on service levels and the incorporation of hygiene. This article reflects on the process of establishing SDG baselines and the methods used to generate national, regional and global estimates for the new household WASH indicators. The JMP 2017 update drew on over 3000 national data sources, primarily household surveys (n = 1443), censuses (n = 309) and administrative data (n = 1494). Whereas most countries could generate estimates for basic drinking water and basic sanitation, fewer countries could report on basic handwashing facilities, water quality and the disposal of waste from onsite sanitation. Based on data for 96 and 84 countries, respectively, the JMP estimates that globally 2.1 billion (29%) people lacked safely managed drinking water services and 4.5 billion (61%) lacked safely managed sanitation services in 2015. The expanded JMP inequalities database also finds substantial disparities by wealth and sub-national regions. The SDG baselines for household WASH reveal the scale of the challenge associated with achieving universal safely managed services and the substantial acceleration needed in many countries to achieve even basic services for everyone by 2030. Many countries have begun to localise the global SDG targets and are investing in data collection to address the SDG data gaps, whether through the integration of new elements in household surveys or strengthening collection and reporting of information through administrative and regulatory systems.
Highlights
Division of Data, Research and Policy, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health, World Health
Whereas most countries could generate estimates for basic drinking water and basic sanitation, fewer countries could report on basic handwashing facilities, water quality and the disposal of waste from onsite sanitation
For countries lacking data in a given year, a value was imputed based on the average for sharing sanitation facilities with other households was used to calculate trends for basic sanitation that m49 level 2 region [29] in order to ensure that different regional groupings would yield estimates services
Summary
In addition to these official global indicators, the JMP tracks progress against lower rungs in the “service ladders” (Table 2) as well as generating estimates for specific types of improved drinking water sources (piped vs non-piped) and sanitation facilities (sewer, septic, latrines and other) which form part of the JMP methodology for calculating safely managed services and informing sector progress. Improved sources include piped water, boreholes or tubewells, protected dug wells, protected springs, rainwater, and packaged or delivered water
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