About one-third of the world’s population — 2.4 billion people — will remain without access to improved sanitation in 2015, according to a joint WHO/Unicef report issued on Monday.
The report — Progress on sanitation and drinking-water 2013 update, warns that at the current rate of progress, the 2015 millennium development goal (MDG) target of halving the proportion of the 1990 population without sanitation will be missed by 8 per cent, or half a billion people.
According to the report, in 2011, almost two thirds (64%) of the world population relied on improved sanitation facilities, while 15 per cent continued to defecate in the open. Since 1990, almost 1.9 billion people have gained access to an improved sanitation facility.
However, the world, remains off track to meet the MDG sanitation target, which requires reducing the proportion of people without access from 51 per cent in 1990, to 25 per cent by 2015, said the report.
The greatest progress, as per the experts has been made in eastern Asia, where sanitation coverage has increased from 27% in 1990 to 67% in 2011, amounting to more than 626 million people gaining access to improved sanitation facilities over a 21-year period.
The report revealed that by the end of 2011, there were 2.5 billion people who lacked access to an improved sanitation facility. Of these, 761 million use public or shared sanitation facilities and another 693 million use facilities that do not meet minimum standards of hygiene (unimproved sanitation facilities).
The good news is that open defecation rates declined globally from 24 per cent in 1990 to 15 per cent in 2011.