Monitoring

Drinking water services refers to the accessibility, availability and quality of the main source used by households for drinking, cooking, personal hygiene and other domestic uses

Sanitation services refer to the management of excreta from the facilities used by individuals, through emptying and transport of excreta for treatment and eventual discharge or reuse.​​​​​​

Hygiene refers to the conditions and practices that help maintain health and prevent spread of disease including handwashing, food hygiene, and menstrual hygiene management (see Menstrual Health).

Menstrual health refers to ‘a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, in relation to the menstrual cycle’.

Tracking inequalities in access to drinking water, sanitation and hygiene is essential for achieving universal access and ensuring progressive realisation of the human rights to water and sanitation.

The JMP expanded its databases to include WASH in schools and published harmonized national, regional and global baseline estimates in August 2018. The 2020 update report includes national, regional and global progress from 2015 to 2019 and a special focus on the implications for ensuring the safety of students and school staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2019 the JMP published a global baseline report  with harmonized estimates for water, sanitation, hand hygiene, health care waste management, and environmental cleaning (WASH) services in health care facilities. In 2020 the global database was updated and the JMP contributed to the WHO/UNICEF Global progress report on WASH in health care facilities: fundamentals first

The JMP uses a standard classification and estimation method to compare progress across countries, regions and the world.