Global Water Supply and Sanitation Assessment, 2000 Report.

THIS REPORT PRESENTS the findings of the fourth assessment undertaken by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP). This volume updates and consolidates findings of earlier reports (1991, 1993, 1996) regarding global coverage estimates and it goes further by providing crucial information about the performance of the sector in relation to financial aspects, target-setting and constraints that hinder further advancements (Section III). This report therefore constitutes a valuable source of information for all those who wish to know where the water and sanitation sector now stands and how it is changing over time. More specifically, the information is valuable for supporting decisions relating to investment, planning, management and quality of service in the sector at a national and international level. Moreover, the special relevance of this report lies in the fact that the water supply and sanitation coverage data generated by the JMP form the reference data for the UN system.

Despite the continuity in relation to past reports, the 2000 assessment also represents a shift in methodology and in approach. The use of household survey data together with country questionnaires for the collection of data allows the disaggregation of global coverage data into regions as well as the breakdown of the different means of provision. Past reports’ black and white picture of “served” or “unserved” is then transformed into a more detailed coverage classification according to the technological sophistication of the facility.

In the introduction, the 2000 assessment stresses the relationship between the lack of provision for water and sanitation and the economic and health burden associated with it, especially in the case of the poorest of the poor. Attempts to improve the coverage figures are deemed essential for any poverty alleviation strategy.

The global trends (Section II) presented in the report show that in spite of an increase in the coverage estimates for rural water supply and sanitation throughout the 1990s, the present situation is worse in rural areas than in cities. On the other hand, the provision of sanitation in urban areas has also increased during the 1990s while that of water supply has slightly declined due to rapid urbanization. Therefore, as a consequence of current projections for urban population growth, the future challenges and main problems are going to be in cities, especially in those of Africa and Asia. Section IV of the report is therefore exclusively dedicated to the issue of water supply and sanitation in big cities. Section V explores the challenges, future needs and prospects. With 2015 and 2025 as targets in mind, the report highlights both the magnitude and the significance of the task to be undertaken in the years to come. In this sense, the report identifies some major challenges for the future: keeping pace with the projected population growth; closing the coverage and service gap (especially that of sanitation which lags behind water supply); ensuring both functional and environmental sustainability; and improving the quality of services. Crucial for all these
challenges is the development of improved sector monitoring.

Finally, in the last six sections, the report engages in the disaggregated examination of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Oceania, Europe and North America. In each of the sections, the report provides information about the evolution during the 1990s, the current coverage estimates and the future.