General note on the data

The data presented in the following statistical tables are accompanied by definitions, sources and explanations of symbols. The tables are derived from many sources and thus will inevitably cover a wide range of data quality. Official government data received by the responsible United Nations agency have been used whenever possible. In the many cases where there are no reliable official figures, estimates made by the responsible United Nations agency have been used. Where such internationally standardized estimates do not exist, the tables draw on other sources, particularly data received from the appropriate UNICEF field office. Where possible, only comprehensive or representative national data have been used.

Data quality is likely to be adversely affected for countries that have recently suffered from man-made or natural disasters. This is particularly so where basic country infrastructure has been fragmented or major population movements have occurred.

Data for life expectancy, total fertility rates, crude birth and death rates, etc. are part of the regular work on estimates and projections undertaken by the United Nations Population Division. These and other internationally produced estimates are revised periodically, which explains why some of the data will differ from those found in earlier UNICEF publications.

A major revision has occurred in the method by which water and sanitation coverage estimates have been derived in table 3. Estimates in past reports were based on data from providers of water and sanitation services. However, many water providers do not know whether the services originally provided are still functioning, who is using these services and, for most countries, do not have any assessment of water quality. The new methodology accepts the difficulty of direct assessment of water quality by dividing the process of measurement into three parts: the source, quality and consistency of supply. The main source of drinking water is determined through household surveys. Sources categorized as ‘improved’ are used to determine the coverage estimates given in table 3. Work has already started on assessing the quality of water by source, but it will take some years before global estimates can be reported. A similar approach has been taken for sanitation. This methodology has been adopted for the estimates in the United Nations Secretary-General’s year 2000 report on Progress made in providing safe water supply and sanitation for all during the 1990s.

The tables contain two other notable changes: in education and GNP per capita. The primary source of the education data in the current tables is the Education for All Year 2000 Assessment: Statistical document, produced by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics for the International Consultative Forum on Education for All for the World Education Forum in Dakar (Senegal) in early 2000. As a result, the data for a few countries may differ substantially from that reported in previous tables. Utilizing an early release of data by the World Bank, we have used GNP per capita data for 1999, thus skipping the data for 1998.

Explanation of symbols

Since the aim of this statistics chapter is to provide a broad picture of the situation of children and women worldwide, detailed data qualifications and footnotes are seen as more appropriate for inclusion elsewhere. Only three symbols are used to classify the table data:

-  Indicates data are not available.

x  Indicates data that refer to years or periods other than those specified in the column heading, differ from the standard defini-tion, or refer to only part of a country.

*  Data refer to the most recent year avail-able during the period specified in the column heading.