|Global Water Supply and Sanitation Assessment 2000 Report
(UNICEF - WSSCC - WHO, 2000, 90 p.)| |1. The Global Water Supply
and Sanitation Assessment 2000| The percentage of people served
with some form of improved water supply rose from 79% (4.1
billion) in 1990 to 82% (4.9 billion) in 2000. Over the same
period the proportion of the world's population with access to
excreta disposal facilities increased from 55% (2.9 billion
people served) to 60% (3.6 billion). At the beginning of 2000
one-sixth (1.1 billion people) of the world's population was
without access to improved water supply (Figure 2.1) and two-
fifths (2.4 billion people) lacked access to improved sanitation
(Figure 2.2). The majority of these people live in Asia and
Africa, where fewer than one-half of all Asians have access to
improved sanitation and two out of five Africans lack improved
water supply. Moreover, rural services still lag far behind
urban services. Sanitation coverage in rural areas, for example,
is less than half that in urban s