The 2011 Millennium Development Goals Report: Advances in sanitation often bypass the poor and those living in rural areas

The 2011 MDG report was recently released and it newly flagged that the world is not on track to meet the sanitation MDG targets. (See pages 55 and 56 of the report

An important finding is that “an analysis of trends over the period of 1995 – 2008 for three countries in Southern Asia shows that improvements in sanitation disproportionately benefited the better off. while coverage for the poorest 40 percent of households hardly increased” . The report also shows that “Rural populations everywhere are disadvantaged when it comes to improved sanitation…. Inequalities are most stark in Southern Asia, where an urban resident is 2.2 times more likely to use an improved facility than a rural resident”.

Furthermore, the MDG report notes that the poorest children have made the slowest progress in terms of improved nutrition and notes that “in Southern Asia, a shortage of quality food and poor feeding practices, combined with inadequate sanitation, has contributed to making underweight prevalence among the children the highest in the world”

Access the entire MDG Report for 2011