Mayors, civil society, universities, donors and implementing organizations from six countries came together in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia on 3 – 5 August 2016 for the “North-East Asian Mayors’ Forum”.

Organized by the Ulaanbaatar City Government, this was the third time. The Forum has been held and on this occasion it was on the topic “Green Growth of Cities –Green Energy Solutions”.  More than 200 individuals from China, Japan, Russia South Korea, Hungary and Mongolia participated in the event.

The objective of the Forum, which was initiated by the President of Mongolia, Mr. Elbedorj Tsakhia in 2011, is to share experience of best practices and peer-to-peer learning between cities all over Asia with regard to green growth and green energy solutions.

The GIZ Urban Nexus Project, which is financed by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), presented the “integrated resource management” approach at the Forum in the framework of the vision of a circular economy as the basis for resource efficiency economizing of precious resources such as water, energy, food and land.

Concrete examples of innovative, cross sectoral engineering solutions include:

• Waste water to energy, reuse of water and nutrients
• Solid waste to energy and water
• Reduction of energy through efficient water pumps and water loss detection and
• Thermo-technical rehabilitation of public and private buildings and schools in Ulaanbaatar and hospitals, kindergartens, dormitories and health stations in Western Mongolia in collaboration with the bilateral GIZ Energy Efficiency Project and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) leading to reductions in energy and CO2 emissions of  up to 50%

These were presented and discussed during the Forum.

The Urban Nexus is embedded in the international 2030 Development Agenda (SDGs) as well as the Paris Climate Agreement (COP21) of December 2015 and the New Urban Agenda to be approved in Quito, Ecuador during the HABITAT III Conference in October 2016.

In his closing statement, Mr. S. Batbold, the Mayor of Ulaanbaatar, thanked all the participants for their active participation and their commitment to support Ulaanbaatar to become a green city in the near future. He said he felt confident to reach this goal “with all the experts from Asian Development Bank (ADB), the World Bank, International Finance Corporation (IFC) and GIZ around us”.