Parliament and Parliamentarians have a major role in promoting and achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in India. The aim of this handbook is to assist our Parliamentarians in monitoring India's progress towards achieving the eight international targets for poverty alleviation, and to intensify their legislative, budgetary, oversight and advocacy functions. As an advocacy and sensitisation tool, this publication also seeks to raise awareness on the MDGs and address concerns regarding scope, applicability and relevance of the eight goal areas for India today.

As per the India MDG Report 2009, India has the lowest sanitation coverage in the world - in 2007-08, an estimated 66% of rural households did not have toilet facilities. If India's Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) and Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) are to be pegged down, the country will have to focus urgently on three central concerns: hunger/malnutrition; health care; and sanitation. Read More

The world is still on track for reaching the MDG drinking water target, but the trend appears to be deteriorating. On current trends, the world will miss the sanitation target by more than half a billion people. See below (Source: WHO & UNICEF)

Every year, unsafe water, coupled with a lack of basic sanitation, kills at least 1.6 million children under the age of five years.

Many countries in Asia are unlikely to meet the sanitation target of Millennium Development Goal 7: “halving by 2015 the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation.” According to the joint agency publication “Asia Water Watch 2015,” the “off-track” countries for rural sanitation are Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Viet Nam, and five Pacific island countries.

The access to improved sanitation facilities has not been quite impressive during the last decade as per the mid term statistical review of the India MDG report. India, one of the most densely populated countries in the world, has the lowest sanitation coverage. Only 1/10 of its total population is 1991‐ of the magnitude of about 60 million did not have any kind of sanitation facility. The recent statistics shows that only about 2% households have gained sanitation facilities during 2006‐07.

This report, produced by the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme on Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP), provides the latest estimates and trends on the current status on water and sanitation today. The JMP’s estimates are critical for calculating rates of progress towards national goals and for highlighting priorities, especially those that target the underserved. Read More

"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".