The sanitation ladder is a useful tool that is being used to monitor progress towards the sanitation target of the MDGs.
This tool could be even more useful if it can be refined to be based on the functions of sanitation systems rather than on a hierarchy of predefined sanitation technologies. This paper presents a seven-rung function-based sanitation ladder where the functions can be broadly divided into health functions and environmental functions. The proposed ladder is intended as an inspiration for nations, and the JMP, to move towards a function-based rather than technology-based monitoring of sanitation progress.
A functional approach to monitoring of e.g. the sanitation target of the MDGs would require some major shifts in the monitoring methods used but it is argued that such an approach would:
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