The Urban Inequity Survey (UIS) is an innovative methodology, developed by UN-HABITAT, to monitor and assess water and sanitation service coverage, and to display the data spatially. Its objectives are to:

• Establish baseline data in urban centres of different sizes;
• Support the design of both physical infrastructure and capacity-building interventions; and
• Track progress towards the attainment of the water and sanitation MDGs at the local level.

The UIS has been implemented in 17 secondary urban centres in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, as part of the UN-HABITAT-supported Lake Victoria Region Water and Sanitation Initiative (LVWATSAN), and is currently being implemented in Zanzibar. The National Statistical Bureaus in each country are key partners in collecting and processing data.

UIS is based on a methodology that disaggregates urban water and sanitation service coverage by gender and socio-economic status, and displays the data spatially. Its main aim is to identify needs in terms of access to infrastructure and basic services (water, sanitation, solid waste management and drainage), such as sufficiency, safety and acceptability, affordability and physical accessibility. They also address different components of other human settlements issues such as durable housing, overcrowding, security of tenure, education, employment, social capital, income and expenditure, solid waste management, environment, health, livelihoods, transportation, in short, a comprehensive set of information on a majority of MDG indicators. The exercise involves the use of GIS to identify populations that are not served by water and sanitation facilities.