In July, the World Health Organization and UNICEF published the first assessment of drinking water and sanitation service under the sustainable development goals.

Circle of Blue reporter Brett Walton spoke with Catarina Fonseca, head of the international and innovation program at IRC, a water and sanitation organization, about the report’s strengthens and weaknesses as well as the successes and failures that it documents. Fonseca notes that though more people have gained access to water in recent years, those gains are unevenly distributed.

“There has been progress, but the progress is not fast enough, especially on sanitation, to achieve the sustainable development goals,” she says.

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