Sustainable Sanitation Project

Mongolia is a landlocked country of three million residents, more than one third of whom living in the capital, Ulaanbaatar. Approximately one third of the urban population in Mongolia still lives in Gers (yurts).

Poverty is generally concentrated in the “Ger districts” OF UB with deficiencies in basic
infrastructure and services, namely inadequate water supply, extremely poor sanitation, improper solid waste collection, bad drainage, lack of central heating and bad roads. The issue of hygiene and
sanitation, in particular in Ulaanbaatar’s Ger areas without access to the centralized water supply, sewerage and drainage service system, is an emerging problem. Through waterborne diseases
the health of the population, especially children, is affected. Most of the households use simple
unsealed pit latrines that create an ever increasing threat to the groundwater. Very few systematic
research projects have been conducted on the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sectors in Mongolia and none related to the potential for achieving sanitation improvements utilizing the
concepts of ‘Sustainable Sanitation’ (sanitation programs that utilize resource recovery to drive
sustainability).

To focus on this particular need and to find a sustainable solution for sanitary improvement in
peri-urban Mongolia, a research project, jointly executed by University of Science and Technology
Beijing (USTB) and Action Contre la Faim (ACF), was initiated in 2011. Other project partners include
MUST and MSUA from Mongolia.

• Type: Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
• Intervention Zone: Oulan Bator, Mongolia
• Target : Sustainable Sanitation for vulnerable Peri-Urban Population in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
• Project objective: To assess the technical feasibility, potentiality and social acceptability of different household greywater and human feces treatment technologies through onsite experiments.