Core Questions on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Household Surveys

The WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (JMP) has produced regular estimates of national, regional and global progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) since 1990. It has established an extensive global database and has been instrumental in developing global norms to benchmark progress. The JMP was responsible for monitoring the 2015 Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target 7c and is now responsible for tracking progress towards the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets related to WASH.

The indicators selected for monitoring the SDG WASH targets build on the established improved/ unimproved facility type classification and introduce additional criteria, derived from the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, relating to the level of service provided. Since 2012, the JMP has been collaborating with the UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey programme and other international survey programmes to develop and test new questions that address the SDG criteria for service levels, including an innovative new module for water quality testing in household surveys.

The following document focuses on survey questions for assessing drinking water, sanitation and hygiene at the household level.