The Millennium Development Goals report 2011

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Report, an annual assessment of regional progress towards the Goals, reflects the most comprehensive, up-to-date data compiled by over 25 UN and international agencies. The Report shows that although significant strides have been made, reaching all the MDGs by 2015 remains challenging because progress has failed to reach the most vulnerable. An estimated 1.1 billion people in urban areas and 723 million people in rural areas gained access to an improved drinking water source over the period 1990-2008 but, at the same time, advances in sanitation often bypass the poor
and those living in rural areas. More than 2.6 billion people still lack access to toilets or other forms of improved sanitation; and where progress has occurred, it has largely skipped the poor. In Southern Asia, for instance, sanitation coverage for the poorest 40 per cent of households has hardly increased between 1995 and 2008.