Access to clean water for domestic use
(drinking, cooking and personal hygiene) as
well as access to basic, yet adequate sanitation
is essential in maintaining the health of
a population. However, based on 2008
estimates, 466 million people lack access to
improved water sources and 1.87 billion
people lack access to improved sanitation in
Asia and the Pacific.
Uninhibited access to safe and potable water is
vital for human life. Inadequate access to
improved sanitation facilities, coupled with poor
hygienic practices, allows diseases to spread,
leading to impoverishment and diminished
opportunities. Recognizing the far-reaching
health and economic impacts of inaccessibility to
safe water and unavailability of basic sanitation,
the United Nations General Assembly declared
in July 2010 that access to safe and potable
drinking water as well as sanitation is a “human
right essential to the enjoyment of life and all
other human rights” – just like the right to food
and the right to live free of torture and racial
discrimination.1
The importance of water and sanitation is also
articulated in the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs); specifically in the MDG-7 target
of reducing by one half the proportions of people
without sustainable access to safe drinking water
and to basic sanitation (as measured by the access
to improved water sources and access to improved
sanitation). Sustainability in this context pertains
both to the functional aspects of sanitation
technologies and the long-term viability of
individual and collective efforts to provide for
sanitation facilities.
Improved water sources, according to the WHO
Global Health Observatory (WHO/GHO),
include household water-supply connections,
public standpipes, boreholes, protected dug wells,
protected springs and rainwater collection.
Improved sanitation facilities include connections
to public sewers or septic systems, pour-flush
latrines, simple pit latrines or ventilated,
improved pit latrines – but not public or open
latrines.
Globally, an estimated 876 million people lack
reliable access to improved water sources and
2.63 billion do not have access to improved
sanitation facilities.
Sustainable access to safe water
In Asia and the Pacific the proportion of people
who enjoy improved water sources has steadily
increased from 74% in 1990 to 82% in 2000 and
89% in 2008. The gains can largely be attributed
to infrastructural investment and development in
East and North-East Asia, South-East Asia, and
South and South-West Asia. The current rate of
progress puts Asia and the Pacific slightly behind
Latin America and the Caribbean, which for
years has shown the highest access among
developing regions of the world. The Asia-Pacific
region is ahead of Africa (a 65% access rate in
2008). North America and Europe have set the
standard of universal access to safe and potable
water.
East and North-East Asia, and North and Central
Asia, lead the Asia-Pacific region in providing
improved water sources, with coverage of 90%
or more of their populations. All countries in
those two subregions, except Mongolia and
Tajikistan, had a 2008 access to improved water
rate at or above 80%.
Pacific island countries as a whole have regressed
from a 90% access rate in 1990 to 88% in 2008,
a level that is still higher than the global average.
The relapse is mainly due to a decrease in the
access to improved water sources by people in
Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea’s
population currently represents 18% of the
Pacific subregion (an increase from 15% in 1990) while the percentage of people with access to
improved water sources is an appalling 40%
(a decrease from 41% in 1990 and much lower
than any other country in the Pacific).
Figure I.45 – Total population with access to
improved water sources, Asia-Pacific and
subregions, 1990 and 2008
In 2008, 96% of the urban population
throughout Asia and the Pacific had access to
improved water sources. While the percentage of
the urban population without access to improved
water sources has increased in a few cases
(specifically, Armenia, Bangladesh, Cook
Islands, Indonesia, Lao People’s Democratic
Republic, the Marshall Islands, Myanmar,
Nepal, Pakistan and Papua New Guinea), all
other countries have experienced constant or
inclining access to improved water sources since
1990. Partly responsible for the declines in urban
access to water was rural-to-urban migration that
increased competition for the use of available
water, especially in burgeoning slum areas. In
2008, only 75% of the urban population in
Myanmar had adequate access to improved water,
compared with 87% in 1990. Political turmoil
as well as the recent natural disasters have driven
the decline. Between 1990 and 2008, Afghanistan (based on
1995, 1990 data unavailable), Cambodia,
Mongolia and Timor-Leste (based on 2000,
1990 and 1995 data unavailable) exhibited the
greatest increase in the percentage with access to
improved water in urban areas, with a 66,
29, 16 and 17 percentage point difference,
respectively. These three countries have achieved
the MDG-7 target of a 50% reduction in the
proportion of people without access to improved
water in urban areas. Georgia, India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey, Tuvalu, Vanuatu
and Viet Nam also achieved the MDG-7 target
in urban areas; however, as the 1990 values were
higher, the relative gains in these countries were
less (between 2 and 11 percentage points).
Figure I.46 – Urban population with access to
improved water sources, Asia and the Pacific,
1990 and 2008*
* The following countries used other earliest years as indicated where
data is available – Lao PDR, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Solomon Islands,
and Tonga (1995); Bhutan and Timor-Leste (2000); and Nauru (2005).
Meanwhile, the following countries used other latest years as indicated
where data is available – Fiji (2000); Kiribati, Palau, Samoa and Solomon
Islands (2005).
Between 1990 and 2008, the proportion of the
rural population with access to improved water
sources increased by 19 percentage points from
64% to 83%, this is more than a 50% reduction
in the proportion of the rural population without
access. Nonetheless, access in rural areas remains
13 percentage points less than that in urban areas,
despite several initiatives to shorten the gap.
In all the subregions excepting the Pacific, more
than 80% of rural inhabitants have access to
improved water sources; and in the Pacific all
countries except Papua New Guinea (33%),
Vanuatu (79%) and Solomon Islands (65%)
meet the same criteria. Impressive gains have
been observed in many Asia-Pacific countries. In
China alone, access to improved water sources in
rural areas increased from 56% in 1990 to 82%
in 2008. In the same period, Mongolia increased
the access rate from 27% to 49%. In South-East
Asia, Viet Nam has taken the lead by increasing
the access rate from 51% in 1990 to 92% in
2008. Access to basic sanitation facilities
The year 2008 was named the International Year
of Sanitation in order to emphasize the
importance and value to health, the economy and
the environment of having adequate access to
basic sanitation. Massive campaigns were
launched to develop and distribute lowest-cost
technologies that would dispose of excreta and
sullage, hygienically and enable communities of
users to live in clean and healthy environments.
The drive for sanitation has particular relevance
for Asia; home to 70% of the world’s 1.1 billion
people who defecate in the open (58% are in
India alone).2
From 1990 to 2008, the global proportion of
people with access to improved sanitation
facilities increased from 53% to 61%; however, over that same time period the number of people
lacking access to improved sanitation increased
from 2.50 billion to 2.63 billion. Thus, the world
population is growing faster than the delivery of
improved sanitation services.
Figure I.47 – Rural population with access to
improved water sources, Asia and the Pacific,
1990 and 2008*
* The following countries used other earliest years where data is available – Afghanistan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Republic of Korea, Lao PDR,
Solomon Islands, Tajikistan, Tonga and Turkmenistan (1995); Bhutan
and Timor-Leste (2000). Meanwhile, the following countries used other
latest years as indicated where data is available – Iran (Islamic Rep. of )
(2000); Cook Islands, Kiribati, Micronesia (F.S.), Palau, Samoa, Solomon
Islands, and Turkmenistan (2005).
Figure I.48 – Total population with access to
improved sanitation, world regions, 1990 and
2008
The Asia-Pacific region has made more progress
toward halving the proportion of people without
improved sanitation than any other region. From
42% in 1990, Asia and the Pacific had by 2008
increased its proportion of people with access to
improved sanitation to 54%, which corresponds
to a decrease of 20% in the proportion of people
without improved sanitation. Over the same
period, the number of people in the Asia-Pacific
lacking access to improved sanitation fell from
1.88 billion to 1.86 billion.
South and South-West Asia lag behind in
providing improved sanitation facilities; in 2008,
the proportion of the population with access to
improved sanitation was an abysmal 40%. The
number of people lacking access to improved
sanitation grew by 126 million from 1990 to
2008. The increase was driven primarily by the
high population growth rate in tandem with the
low delivery rate of sanitation improvements. The
Pacific subregion regressed from an 88%
provision rate in 1990 to 85% in 2008. Similar
to the access to improved water sources, the poor
performance in the Pacific was primarily due to
the decrease in access in Papua New Guinea
(47% to 45%) coupled with Papua New Guinea’s
rising share in the subregional population.
South-East Asia continues to make gains in
providing access to improved sanitation. The
subregion increased, by 25 percentage points, the proportion of people with access to basic
sanitation services between 1990 and 2008.
Myanmar and Viet Nam made the greatest leap
over that period; from a 23% access rate to 81%
in Myanmar and from 35% to 75% in Viet
Nam.
Figure I.49 – Total population with access to
improved sanitation, Asia-Pacific and
subregions, 1990 and 2008
The increasing urban Asian and Pacific
population and the continued slum growth may
put the achievement of the MDG-7 sanitation
target in jeopardy. Between 1990 and 2008, basic
sanitation access in the region’s urban locations
increased by only 3 percentage points. With an
urban population growth rate that is increasing
faster than the sanitation access rate, the region
regressed in the number of urban inhabitants
with improved sanitation services. From 1990 to
2008, the Asia-Pacific urban population lacking
access to improved sanitation increased by 167
million. Progress in increasing the rate of access
has been slow in all subregions except South-East
Asia, which made a gain of 12 percentage points
in the access rate over the past two decades. In
2008, Bangladesh, China, India and Nepal
showed urban improved sanitation access rates
below 60%.
In rural areas, Asian and Pacific countries have
increased the proportion of those with access to
improved sanitation. From 30% in 1990 and
38% in 2000, access by the rural population to
improved sanitation increased to 43% in 2008,
2% shy of the global average. Over that period,
South-East Asia achieved the greatest rural
sanitation rate increase of 26 percentage points;
followed by East and North-East Asia at 13 and
South and South-West Asia at 14. Although
South and South-West Asia have shown an increase in rural access to improved sanitation,
the subregional rate is only 28%, which is much
lower than any other subregion. In South and
South-West Asia, 4 of the 10 countries had a
coverage rate at 30% or lower and another 2 were
below 60% in 2008. Afghanistan, India, Nepal and Pakistan achieved rural sanitation coverage
rates of only 30%, 21%, 27% and 29%,
respectively, in 2008. With respect to achieving
the MDG-7 sanitation target, the current trend
is not promising.
Figure I.50 – Urban population with access to
improved sanitation, Asia-Pacific and subregions, world, 1990 and 2008
Figure I.51 – Rural population with access to
improved sanitation, Asia-Pacific and subregions, world, 1990 and 2008
Still a long road ahead
Despite the clear health, economic and environmental benefits of safe water and hygienic sanitation facilities, the
Asia-Pacific region is still far from having universal coverage.
Growth in regional coverage in access to improved water and sanitation from 1990 to 2008 demonstrates some
progress in achieving the MDG-7 targets in Asia and the Pacific. However, rural access continues to fall short of
urban access. Rural areas often lack an enabling environment that can attract sustained investments, both public
and private for the improvement of water and sanitation services and facilities.
Rural and urban population with access to improved water sources and anitation, Asia and the Pacific, 1990
and 2008
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