The Programme also plays an advocacy role, highlighting the right to improved drinking water and sanitation for populations missing out and helping to target interventions.
[7] As well as reporting on the national, regional and global use of different types of drinking water sources and sanitation facilities, the JMP actively supports countries in their efforts to monitor this sector and develop evidence based planning and management, plays a normative role in indicator formation and advocates on behalf of populations without improved water or sanitation.
The JMP vision is to accelerate progress towards universal and sustainable access for underserved populations in the developing world to safe water and basic sanitation, including the achievement of the MDG targets by 2015.
The JMP's mission is to be the trusted source of global, regional and national data on sustainable access to safe drinking-water and basic sanitation, for use by governments, donors, international organizations and civil society.
Discrepancies between national and international (JMP) coverage estimates are generally due to one or more of the following: 1) Use of different definitions of access including poorly defined access categories 2) Exclusion of users of shared sanitation facilities of an otherwise improved type, from those considered to have improved sanitation 3) Use of latest survey or census findings vs. use of an interpolated estimates based on linear regression 4) Use of different population estimates, including a different distribution of urban and rural populations 5) Use of “old” estimates which do not reflect the latest or all findings from new sample surveys or a new census 6) Use of “reported” line ministry data vs. use of independently verifiable data from sample surveys or censuses Complete information about drinking water safety, and the reliability and sustainability of drinking water and sanitation facilities is not available globally, and so these dimensions are not included in the current indicator definitions.