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Monitoring of water supply coverage [Quality Assurance: Sandy Cairncross]

Author(s): Bostoen, Kristof  |  Cairncross, Sandy

Publisher: WEDC
Place of publication: Loughborough University, UK
Year: 2005

Series: WELL Fact Sheet
Collection(s): WELL

Links:

• http://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/wedc/well/

Monitoring of water supply coverage will help to ensure water supply for the millions of people who still lack convenient access to a 'safe', reliable and affordable water source. According to the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme, more than one in four people in the developing world lack access to water (WHO/UNICEF 2004). Targets have been set in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) to accelerate the improvement of this situation. Quantifying access through monitoring will be essential to attain such goals, although the process to achieve these goals will be as important in order to achieve sustainable coverage.

This fact sheet aims to clarify different steps involved in measuring access to water by water coverage surveys and highlight some of the problems that may affect current monitoring.

There is a common misconception that monitoring should only be done by specialised professionals. However, everybody uses similar techniques in their daily lives. When we buy fruit or vegetables we look at them, feel them or even smell them to assess the quality of the product. When all of them cannot be checked individually, we examine a small sample and consider it representative enough to give the buyer confidence in what is being purchased. Monitoring uses a similar process of sampling when a number of households is asked in a survey about their access to water. While, monitoring statistics may often appear daunting, they are in reality only a small part of the monitoring process, as shown below. Despite their small role, the statistics are often given a central place.

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