Monitoring is a key activity for achieving SDG 6, which is to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. WHO monitors water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and progress towards SDG 6 through:

• The WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (JMP),
• The UN-Water Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water (GLAAS),
• The development of WASH accounts using the TrackFin methodology, and
• The monitoring of the safe treatment and reuse of wastewater.

The JMP has reported country, regional and global estimates of progress on drinking-water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) since 1990, and is responsible for monitoring the global SDG indicators for targets 6.1 and 6.2 on drinking-water and sanitation. The JMP maintains extensive global databases for WASH in households, health care facilities and schools and is the leading source of comparable estimates of progress at national, regional and global levels.

GLAAS monitors components of WASH systems, including governance, monitoring, finance, and human resources necessary to sustain and extend WASH services to all, especially the most vulnerable populations. GLAAS collects information on WASH systems from national governments and external support agencies, and monitors the “means of implementation” SDG targets 6.a and 6.b. TrackFin complements the information from GLAAS and is a methodology to support the collection and mapping of WASH financial flows in a comprehensive and comparable manner.

WHO monitors domestic wastewater treatment in coordination with monitoring safely managed sanitation, and as part of SDG target 6.3. Monitoring of domestic wastewater includes wastewater from households with sewer connections and faecal sludge from facilities with on-site storage.