Index of Drinking Water Adequacy (IDWA): International and Intra-national Exploration

Preface

vii Preface This monograph is the result of the collective efforts of four full time researchers of the Institute of Water Policy (IWP). It is motivated by the fact that water is central to economic and human development and its availability and access ought to be measured and monitored — an issue that has become even more crucial in the context of the Millennium Development Goals. IWP research is conducted around a well thought out Medium Term Research Program. One component of the program deals with indicators and statistics, with the present monograph reporting on some of the research results. IDWA first appeared in the Asian Water Development Outlook, 2007 issued by the Asian Development Bank. Extensions and extrapolations have been attempted since and the key results are reported in this monograph. IWP and the authors of this volume present IDWA to the policy makers and multilateral agencies in the hope that they find the idea useful and will help fine-tune it further. On its part IWP plans to annually update the IDWA for as many nations of the world as possible and present it as a handy flier and also upload the index on its website. The updated global IDWA flier will be available each year in June at the time of the Singapore International Water Week. Two of the papers in this volume, the one dealing with Asian economies and the other dealing with Indian states, have appeared in Water Policy, 2010 and Journal of Infrastructure Development, 2009 respectively. We are grateful to the publishers of the journals for permission to reproduce the papers with minimal modifications. We would also seek the understanding of the readers for some inevitable repetitions in the papers that are preserved simply to ensure the continuity of the thought process in each paper. Seetharam Kallidaikurichi E. & Bhanoji Rao April 2010 viii Preface ...