Sustainable Sanitation

The global trend of urbanization is rapidly increasing, and the case is the same in Nepal as well. Only 10.5 percent (MICS 2029) of the total population has access to sewered sanitation services while 66.02 percent (Census 2021) of the total population resides in urban areas. It shows the huge gap in proper sanitation services. Different approaches and techniques are being implemented to increase safe sanitation services but there is a capacity gap among key stakeholders to understand and implement effectively and collaboratively.

Like in many developing countries, over 70 percent of the population in Nepal rely on Non Sewered Sanitation (NSS) services such as pit latrines and septic tanks (Source: Central Bureau of Statistics (2011), Government of Nepal). As the number of municipalities has now increased to 293 (2017) from 58 (2014) with many of the small and emerging towns also being classified as municipalities, the percentage of households connected to septic tanks has further increased.