Sanitation and Hygiene in East Asia
Summary
About 800 million people in East Asia today still lack access to improved sanitation facilities. This represents almost 40% of East Asia's population, which is devoid of this basic services and therefore at risk to sanitation-related diseases. This marginalized segment of the population, usually the poor living in rural areas and densely populated urban slums, is denied the fundamental human right of enjoying good health, dignity and fair opportunities for social and economic development.The main objective of this document is to provide an overview of the status of sanitation in East Asia to support decisions and recommendations in light of the collective governments' commitments expressed in the Beppu Declaration on 1 December 2007. Three information sources were used to prepare this document: (1) information from a survey completed by most East Asian countries; (2) data on access to sanitation services from the new revision of ceoverage statistics from WHO and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP); and (3) literature by different authors describing sanitation concepts and experiences at country level.The document highlights that the proportion of people served with some type of improved sanitation in East Asia rose from 48% in 1990 to 62% in 2008. Despite this major improvement, almost 300 million people still share an improved type of sanitation facility with other households, whereas nearly 400 million use precarious unimproved facilities and over 100 million simply defecate in the open.In addition to sanitation statistics at regional and national levels, the document in East Asia based on information and perceptions by major stakeholders in the Region.