“Between 2000 and 2024, the global population increased from 6.2 billion to 8.2 billion. Over this period, a quarter of the world’s population (2.2 billion) gained access to safely managed drinking water, and a third (2.8 billion) gained safely managed sanitation. But while billions have gained access to WASH services, progress has been uneven and the total number of people still lacking access has decreased more slowly.

Since the start of the SDG period in 2015, 961 million have gained safely managed drinking water and the number of people still lacking access has decreased by 270 million. Among the 2.1 billion people still lacking access to safely managed drinking water in 2024, two thirds (1.4 billion) had a basic service, 287 million used limited services, 302 million used unimproved sources and 106 million still used surface water (61 million fewer people used surface water than in 2015).

Between 2015 and 2024, 1.2 billion people gained safely managed sanitation, and the number of people without decreased from 3.9 billion to 3.4 billion. In 2024, more than half of these people (1.9 billion) had a basic service, 560 million used limited services, 555 million with unimproved services and 354 million still practised open defecation (the number of people practising open defecation has decreased by 429 million since 2015).

Since 2015, 1.5 billion people have gained access to basic hygiene services and the number of people who are still unserved has fallen by nearly 900 million (from 2.5 billion to 1.7 billion). Among the 1.7 billion people who still lacked basic hygiene services in 2024,two thirds (1 billion) had a limited service and 611 million still had no handwashing facility.”

From JMP.