title: Global monitoring of water supply and sanitation: history, methods and future challenges.
abstract: International monitoring of drinking water and sanitation shapes awareness of countries' needs and informs policy, implementation and research efforts to extend and improve services. The Millennium Development Goals established global targets for drinking water and sanitation access; progress towards these targets, facilitated by international monitoring, has contributed to reducing the global disease burden and increasing quality of life. The experiences of the MDG period generated important lessons about the strengths and limitations of current approaches to defining and monitoring access to drinking water and sanitation. The methods by which the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) of WHO and UNICEF tracks access and progress are based on analysis of data from household surveys and linear regression modelling of these results over time. These methods provide nationally representative and internationally comparable insights into the drinking water and sanitation facilities used by populations worldwide, but also have substantial limitations: current methods do not address water quality, equity of access, or extra-household services. Improved statistical methods are needed to better model temporal trends. This article describes and critically reviews JMP methods in detail for the first time. It also explores the impact of, and future directions for, international monitoring of drinking water and sanitation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA. jbartram@email.unc.edu.
authors.forename: Jamie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bartram
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA. clarissa.brocklehurst@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Clarissa
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Brocklehurst
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA. fishermb@email.unc.edu.
authors.forename: Michael B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Fisher
authors.affiliation: The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), New York, NY 10017, USA. rluyendijk@unicef.org.
authors.forename: Rolf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Luyendijk
authors.affiliation: Division of Public Health and the Environment, World Health Organization, Geneva 1211, Switzerland. hossainr@who.int.
authors.forename: Rifat
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hossain
authors.affiliation: The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), New York, NY 10017, USA. twardlaw@unicef.org.
authors.forename: Tessa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wardlaw
authors.affiliation: Division of Public Health and the Environment, World Health Organization, Geneva 1211, Switzerland. gordonb@who.int.
authors.forename: Bruce
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Gordon
mesh_terms: D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000266:history; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D007391:International Cooperation; D012499:Sanitation / Q000266:history; D014480:United Nations; D014881:Water Supply / Q000266:history; D014944:World Health Organization