Progress on sanitation and drinking water - 2010 update

The WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme forWater Supply and Sanitation (JMP) released on 15 March itslatestreport entitled "Progress on sanitation and drinking-water – 2010 update". Thisreportprovides the most recent data for drinking-water and sanitation, along with theimplications and trends towards the drinking-water and sanitation MDGtarget.  This latest update tells us that the world is on track to meetthe MDG drinking target and that 84% of the population is using an improvedsource of drinking-water.  Although 1.3 billion people have gained accessto improved sanitation since 1990, the world is likely to miss the MDGsanitation target by a billion people. With the MDG target date of 2015 onlyfive years away, it shows that it is time to intensify efforts towardsachieving the MDG target and addressing the glaring disparities worldwide.