At the heart of the Millennium Development Goals, access to water and sanitation is recognized as central to achieving progress on all fronts of development. While advancement on many international targets can be showcased, hundreds of millions in Asia-Pacific are still disconnected from improved water sources for personal as much as productive use, forcing them into a perennial state of human insecurity.

In 2006, the General Assembly declared 2008 as “International Year of Sanitation” to help improve the poor performance in sanitation coverage worldwide. For the ESCAP region, that would mean providing an unserved 45.5 per cent of the region’s population with access to improved sanitation facilities. The challenge is greater for rural areas, where only 38 per cent of the people had access. Improved sanitation facilities include household toilets or latrines connected to piped sewerage systems and also septic tanks and ventilated improved pit latrines. People without these facilities usually defecate in fields or dispose of faeces in plastic bags, bucket latrines or rivers. The access rate discrepancy between rural and urban areas is thus higher in comparison with access to improved water sources. Despite impressive strides in almost all subregions, average sanitation coverage in ESCAP was still lower than the world average of 60 per cent in 2006.