The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Target 7C calls
for halving the proportion of households without sustainable access
to basic sanitation by 2015. A projected 2.4 billion people will still
lack access to improved sanitation facilities in 2015, and global
sanitation improvements towards Target 7C are estimated to fall
short by half a billion people [1].
The goal of improved sanitation is to hygienically separate
human excreta from human contact and therefore reduce
exposure to fecal contamination [2]. UNICEF and the World
Health Organization’s Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP), the
official body in charge of monitoring MDG development in the
water and sanitation sector, define improved sanitation by the
following types of facilities: toilets connected to sewers or septic
systems, water-based toilets that flush into pits, simple pit latrines
with slabs, and ventilated improved pit latrines [2]. To be
considered improved, these facilities must be privately used by a
single household: if any of these improved technologies is shared
by more than one household, the household’s sanitation access is
considered unimproved. Unimproved facilities include any other-
wise improved facility that is shared by more than one household
as well as infrastructure that does not properly separate human
excreta from potential human contact [3]. Unimproved sanitation
facilities include, for example, the use of buckets, hanging latrines,
or pit latrines without slab coverings. Engaging in open defecation
is also considered unimproved sanitation.