History of the JMP
Prior to 1990, reports on the global status of water-supply and sanitation were issued regularly by WHO using information provided by country agencies and ministries of health. The information was primarily obtained through questionnaires.
During the International drinking-water Supply and Sanitation Decade 1981-1990, the UN mandated WHO to report on progress in access to water-supply and sanitation services. By the end of the decade, it was recognized that a better system was needed to monitor progress at the country level, ideally one that could be used as a management tool for monitoring and influencing sector development. As a result, WHO and UNICEF, launched the Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP) in 1990.
[read more about JMP's history...]
The first two reports of the JMP, Recording the situation at the end of 1991 and Water supply and sanitation sector monitoring report - sector status as of 31 December 1994, focused on the status of national monitoring that was supported by the JMP. To a lesser extent, global coverage estimates were also reported by the JMP, relying on information provided by country reports, and Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS).
Two major goals of the 1990 World Summit for Children were universal access to safe drinking-water and to sanitation. UNICEF was given primary responsibility for helping countries to monitor progress towards the goals, and to prepare periodic global reports on progress. To fill data gaps, UNICEF introduced the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) in 1995. In the first round of MICS, more than 60 countries were surveyed, and 67 countries were surveyed in the second round conducted between 1999-2001. The results roughly doubled the number of household survey data on water and sanitation.
In the late 1990s, the method for calculating trends in access to safe drinking-water and sanitation began to change, as the limitations of provider-based data reported by national governments became clear. This led to a greater dependence on user-based data collected through household surveys. One reason for the shift was that the definition of "access" used by governments varied between countries and even within the same country over time. Another reason was that household surveys provided a more accurate picture of access and use of facilities at the household level.
JMP coverage estimates are now derived from user-based data from nationally representative household surveys such as DHS, MICS, national census reports, Living Standards Measurement Surveys (LSMS), and other valid national household surveys. Provider-based data are used only when no survey data are available. The Global water supply and sanitation assessment 2000 report produced by JMP was widely cited and distributed. The report was largely based on data collected through household surveys and extensive regional consultations. In the report, JMP introduced the term "improved" to refer to access to drinking-water and sanitation facilities when measuring access. In the 2008 report, the JMP developed a new way of presenting the access figures, by disaggregating and refining the data on drinking-water and sanitation and reflecting them in "ladder" format. This allows the JMP to report on a more nuanced picture of access that goes beyond the improved/unimproved dichotomy.
[Learn more about the drinking-water and sanitation ladders]
