The Progress of Nations 2000

DATA BRIEFS: PROGRESS AND DISPARITY
Billions still lack clean water and sanitation

Despite the fact hat every year nearly
2 million children die from diarrhoeal
and other water-related diseases, the
world remains unable to get clean water
and adequate sanitation to those who
most desperately need them. Some
slight improvements have been made
over the past decade: Globally, water
supply coverage is up from 78%,, in
1990 to 82% in 1999. More than 800
million people gained access to clean
water. And sanitation coverage is up
from 54% in 1990 to 59% in 1999.
However, in absolute terms, the
increases have not kept pace with
the need: More than 1 billion people
lack access to clean drinking water
and approximately 2.5 billion people more than one third of the
world's population have no sanitary means of excreta disposal.
In the 16 most populous developing countries representing 80% of
all the world's people sanitation
coverage remains a greater challenge
than access to water. In China, the
Democratic Republic of Congo,
Ethiopia and India alike, less than
half of the population has access to
adequate sanitation facilities. Even
when coverage rises, as it has in
Bangladesh (from 37% in 1990 to
53% in 1999) and Pakistan (from
34% to 59%" over the same period),
large numbers of people remain at
risk from the lack of safe excreta
disposal.

Of the nearly 2 million children
who die from diarrhoeal and other
water-related diseases, almost all are
under the age of five.
Millions also suffer from parasitic
worm infections that stem from the
presence of human excreta and solid
wastes in the environment and cause
anaemia, malnutrition and sometimes death.
Along with disease and fatalities,
there are other, more subtle hardships, including the squalor of life
in communities that lack clean water
and adequate sanitation facilities
and the time burden, which falls
disproportionately on girls at the
expense of their schooling and on
women at the expense of their own
health and child-care tasks.
Access to clean water is generally
improving around the world, but some
countries still lag: In the Democratic
Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria
and Viet Nam, for instance, access
levels are all below 60%.
And in some countries, such as
Bangladesh, arsenic contamination
is rendering the available water presumed to be clean and safe dangerously unsafe.
Reaching people in rural areas is
still the greatest challenge. More
than a quarter (29%,) of the world's
rural population lacks access to clean
water and nearly two thirds (64% e)
lacks access to sanitation facilities.

Water and sanitation: Now and then
% of population covered, in the 16 largest developing countries

Clean water sources*
1999 (1990)

Sanitation facilities**
1999 (1990)

Bangladesh
Egypt
Iran
India
Pakistan
Philippines
Mexico
Brazil
Turkey
Thailand
Indonesia
China
Nigeria
Viet Nam
Congo, Dem. Rep.
Ethiopia

97
95
95
88
88
87
86
83
82
80
76
75
57
56
45
24

(91)
(94)
(86)
(78)
(84)
(87)
(83)
(83)
(78)
(71)
(69)
(71)
(49)
(No data)
(No data)
(22)

Thailand 96 (86)
Egypt 94 (87)
Turkey 92 (88)
Philippines 83 (74)
Iran 81 (81)
Mexico 73 (69)
Viet Nam 73 (No data)
Brazil 72 (63)
Indonesia 65 (54)
Nigeria 63 (60)
Pakistan 59 (34)
Bangladesh 53 (37)
China 38 (29)
India 31 (21)
Congo, Dem. Rep. 20 (No data)
Ethiopia 15 (13)

Total population covered, world (in millions)
Clean water sources* Sanitation facilities**
1999 (1990) Change 1999 (1990) Change
4,932 (4,110) +821 3,599 (2,826) +772
*These include house connections, public standpipes, boreholes with handpumps, protected dug wells,
protected springs, rainwater collection. Tanker trucks and bottled water are not included. The data do not
imply that the level of services or quality of water is adequate or safe. No discounting was made to allow
for intermittance of services or quality of the water supply.
**These include connection to a sewer or septic system, pour-flush latrine, simple pit or ventilated improved pit
latrine and other facilities as long as they are private or shared (but not public). Types not considered safe
are bucket latrine, overhang latrine, open latrine, uncovered pit latrine or open field, 'bush' sanitation.

Source;: UNICEF/WHO estimates, March 2000, for the
Supply and Sanitation Sectar by UNICEF/WHO/Wate
publication date: October 2000.
And in urban areas, high population
growth rates are outpacing increases
in both water and sanitation coverage.
The world will not meet the 1990
World Summit goal of universal

orthcoming Year 2000 Global As:
Supply ancd Sanitation Collaborati

re Water
rxpected

access to safe water and sanitation by
the year 2000, but that task, vastly
compounded by burgeoning urban
populations, remains as urgent today
as it was a decade ago.

Residents of a
t'village in northern
lraq/ jetch water
jfrom a UNICEFin stalled pumllp.
More than I 1 billion
people still lack
tac(cess to clean
drinking water
globa lly and
2.5 billion lack
adequa te
sanitation.

32'