In 2006, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a report highlighting the most common cause of death among children. The purpose was to raise the profile of that neglected disease. This report is written with the intent to focus attention on the prevention and management of diarrhoeal diseases as central to improving child survival.

This report on the assessment of drinking water supply and sanitation in India is the result of a collaborative exercise between the Planning Commission of India, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) as part of a joint monitoring programme (JMP) for the sector. This country-level report in India comes in the wake of the four global assessments (reports published in 1991, 1993, 1996, and 2000) completed through the JMP process.

"Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation: Special focus on Sanitation", is a report brought out by the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation, that tracks the progress on target 10 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which is "To halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and sanitation".