8 May 2014: The World Health Organization (WHO)/UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP) has released a report, titled ‘Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation: 2014 Update.’ The report highlights that, while 56 countries have already met the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets for both water and sanitation, a number of countries are not on track to meet one or both targets. The report also emphasizes the importance of strengthening monitoring of water and sanitation under to post-2015 development agenda.

The report includes sections updating progress on WASH, outlining inequalities and identifying a framework for monitoring WASH post-2015. The progress update outlines global drinking water coverage and trends, 1990-2012, and global sanitation coverage and trends, 1990-2012, including regional coverage and progress towards the MDGs on water supply and sanitation.

The section on inequalities identifies sub-national inequalities, urban and rural inequalities, wealth-based inequalities, and inequalities of marginalized and excluded groups. The report emphasizes the importance of addressing inequalities, such as the urban-rural gap through “leveling-up” in order to realize water supply and sanitation targets.

The report also discusses a framework for monitoring WASH post-2015, including addressing universal access to basic services, safely managed services and ways to expand the WASH monitoring framework. The report describes progress on the development of water-related post-2015 development agenda targets, including the sector-wide consultation on WASH facilitated by the JMP, while identifying associated monitoring challenges related to implementation of ambitious post-2015 WASH targets. [Publication: Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation: 2014 Update]