The EPCRC joined the Green Economy Coalition (GEC), the world’s largest alliance inspiring a transition to green and fair economies, in 2017.

Under a project with the GEC, the EPCRC has launched “Participatory Solution” campaign in October 2018 in order to identify the ger district issues and seek solutions together using participatory systemic inquiry approach. A characterization of participatory systemic inquiry is that researchers let target group identify their problems and also solutions themselves without setting any initial assumptions.

We chose 6th kheseg (an unofficial boundary within a khoroo), 9th khoroo (an administrative subdivision of a district), Chingeltei district as a target group considering its location, population and administration activities. Most of the residents in this kheseg settle in white houses (6-12 households in 1 white house) and the land belongs to the central region of Ulaanbatar city.

Total of 54 households participated in an inquiry which was carried out in November and December 2018. We created a mapping combining issues which residents addressed during the interview and identified causes, consequences, and interrelationships of issues.

As a result of unstructured interviews, we identified 5 main issues: ger area redevelopment, air pollution, environmental problems (waste, stove ashes, household wastewater), pit-latrines and neighbors’ cooperation.  According to the mapping result, neighbors’ relations and cooperation are weak and several issues can be solved by improving neighbors’ cooperation.

Our next step will be making the research results realistic.