ABSTRACT
In adopting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Asian countries have committed to halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. In March 2012, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the world’s MDG target on water has already been achieved. The achievement means that more than 2 billion people gained access to improved drinking water between 1990 and 2010; 1.5 billion of these people are from Asia. Despite this significant progress, as of 2010, 390 million people in Asia still do not have access to improved drinking water, and there remain major issues related to quality of access. On the other hand, the MDG target on sanitation is unlikely to be achieved by 2015. During the same 1990-2010 period, 1.3 out of 1.8 billion people who gained access to improved sanitation were Asian. In 2010, there were 840 million people in Asia continued to practice open defecation.1
