Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) estimates that it requires roughly a doubling of efforts of the past 15 years to reach the MDG sanitation target and a one third increase in efforts to meet the MDG drinking water target. While 1.2 billion people gained access to both improved drinking water sources and improved sanitation from 1990 to 2004, another 1.6 billion need to gain access from 2005 to 2015 to reach the MDG sanitation target and 1.1 billion need to gain access to meet the drinking water target.

The numbers provided in this report express a blunt reality: business as usual is taking the sector towards a potential non-achievement of the global MDG sanitation target. The world, though making progress, is not on track to achieve the sanitation target. To reach that target means providing services to an additional 450 thousand people a day from 2005 to 2015. This calls for almost doubling the current efforts.