An improved sanitation facility is defined as one that hygienically separates human excreta from human contact.
To allow for international comparability of estimates for monitoring the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the World Health Organization/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program (JMP) for Water Supply and Sanitation defines "improved" sanitation as follows:
- Flush toilet
- Connection to a piped sewer system
- Connection to a septic system
- Flush / pour-flush to a pit pit latrine
- Ventilated improved pit (VIP) latrine
- Composting toilet
- Some special cases
Sanitation facilities that are not considered as "improved" are:
- Public or shared latrine
- Flush/pour flush to elsewhere (not into a pit, septic tank, or sewer)
- Pit latrine without slab
- Open pit latrine
- Bucket latrines
- Hanging toilet / latrine
- No facilities / bus / field
Famous quotes containing the word improved:
“Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)