JMP (WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme)

JMP (WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme)
Name	JMP (WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme)
Formation	1990
Type	International monitoring partnership
Headquarters	Geneva, Switzerland
Parent organizations	World Health Organization; United Nations Children's Fund

JMP (WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme) is the joint monitoring initiative led by the World Health Organization and United Nations Children's Fund that tracks global progress on drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene. It produces comparable estimates and trends used by international agencies, national governments, donor institutions, and academic researchers. The Programme underpins monitoring of sustainable development targets and contributes to reporting for the Sustainable Development Goals, Millennium Development Goals, and sectoral initiatives.

Overview

The Programme was established as a collaboration between the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children's Fund to synthesize household surveys, administrative records, and censuses into harmonized estimates of access to drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene across member states. Its outputs inform policy deliberations at venues such as the United Nations General Assembly, the World Health Assembly, and the UNICEF Executive Board, and are cited by institutions including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Global Fund. JMP estimates feed into analyses by research centers such as London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Harvard University, and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

History and development

JMP traces its formal origins to a 1990 agreement between the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children's Fund to harmonize water and sanitation monitoring. Early outputs paralleled reporting for the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade and later the Millennium Development Goals where JMP was the official data custodian for target monitoring. The Programme evolved through collaborations with the United Nations Development Programme, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and non-governmental partners like WaterAid and OXFAM. Methodological revisions occurred alongside global policy milestones such as the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals by the United Nations General Assembly and technical guidance from the World Health Assembly.

Methodology and indicators

JMP compiles data from household surveys like the Demographic and Health Surveys and the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys, national censuses, and administrative records to generate standardized indicators. Core JMP indicators include use of safely managed drinking water services, safely managed sanitation services, basic hygiene services, and open defecation rates, enabling comparisons across countries and regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. Statistical approaches incorporate population-weighted estimates, confidence intervals, and trend interpolation used by scholars at institutions such as the University of Oxford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. JMP’s classification schema aligns with definitions adopted by the World Health Organization and the United Nations General Assembly for SDG target 6. Indicators are complemented by service ladders and equity disaggregation by wealth quintile, urban/rural residence, and sex, employed by analysts at the Overseas Development Institute and the International Water Management Institute.

Global and regional reports

JMP issues periodic flagship reports, regional briefs, and statistical updates that aggregate national data into global estimates. Notable publications have been cited in reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations Environment Programme, and the Global Water Partnership. Regional syntheses cover areas defined by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. The reports feature maps, country tables, and time series used by policymakers at the African Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Impact and policy influence

JMP estimates have shaped target-setting and resource allocation by donors such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the African Development Bank. They inform national planning processes in ministries of health and ministries of water across countries including India, Nigeria, Brazil, and Bangladesh. JMP outputs are referenced in advocacy by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch when linking water and sanitation to human rights instruments like the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and UN resolutions recognizing the right to water. Academic citations appear in journals such as The Lancet, Nature, and Science.

Criticisms and limitations

Scholars and practitioners have critiqued JMP for reliance on household self-reporting in surveys like the Demographic and Health Surveys and for gaps in documenting water quality, fecal exposure, and service continuity—issues raised in studies from World Resources Institute and Southern Voice. Critics highlight that JMP’s indicators may underrepresent informal settlements in cities such as Lagos and Mumbai and that administrative data from ministries may lack standardization, a concern discussed at forums like the World Water Forum and the Stockholm World Water Week. Debates with organizations like WaterAid and research teams at Imperial College London have prompted methodological refinements but also underscore limitations in temporal resolution and subnational granularity.

Data access and dissemination

JMP provides downloadable datasets, country tables, and metadata used by analysts at UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and civil society groups. Its data portal supports integration with platforms such as the World Bank DataBank and academic repositories at Harvard Dataverse. Visualization tools and APIs enable mapping by universities including University College London and the University of California, Berkeley. Training and capacity-building activities are conducted in partnership with regional bodies like the Pan American Health Organization and the African Ministers' Council on Water to improve national monitoring systems.

Category:International development Category:Water and sanitation