The February 5 event ushered in a new public vision of vocational occupations in Mongolia, challenging the widespread perception that females were not fit in such heavy industries as mining and construction. 

According to Tuv Azza LLC Human Resource Manager G.Altantuya, as reported in the UB Post newspaper, heavy industries were interested in hiring females, particularly in the fields of engineering and security. “Women can be very successful once they chose these majors,” she said.

Advisor to the Minister of Labour, Ts. Nyamsuren, also quoted in the UB Post, said the ministry was making changes in relevant policies and laws to enable women to undertake positions in technical fields.

A total of 80 girls took part in the “Girls’ Day” event, where they received information about Mongolia’s vocational education, the specifics of different technical professions and current career opportunities.

They also took part in workshops, using tools and practising their skills under the guidance of teachers in the fields of carpentry, bricklaying, house-painting, electrical engineering and geodesy.

More than 15 Mongolian companies representing the mining, construction, food, hospitality, and trade and commerce sectors provided information on their particular areas of specialisation.  

Thanks to the success of the first “Girls’ Day” – organised in cooperation with the Institute of Engineering Technology, the GIZ Cooperative Vocational Training (CVT) Project will support more vocational schools in organising similar activities throughout 2015, with the aim of making “Girls’ Day” an annual event in Mongolia.

GIZ’s CVT Project is co-financed by German Government, SDC and the Australian government and is aimed at reforming Mongolia’s vocational education sector.

What are your impressions of SDC’s programme in Mongolia following the review and given the changing national context? Are we doing the right thing at the right time and in the right place? Are we aligned with the Mongolian government’s development policies?

First of all, it was a good exercise to undertake this review in the light of the rapidly changing political, economic and social context. It was necessary for us to look back and review our activities to determine whether we are doing the rights things in the right places with the right partners. We invited our partner organisations to listen to their insights and recommendations as they are very involved in our programme, yet they are outsiders to SDC and bring in different views from ours. In that sense, our workshop held on 4 February was very rich and gave us a lot of food for thought.

In terms of alignment with the Mongolian Government, the workshops and their preliminary work showed that we are well aligned with Mongolia’s development priorities. During my mission we had several engaging talks with some minsters, including the Minister for Food and Agriculture and the Minister for Labour. It has been confirmed that SDC’s engagements are indeed tackling Mongolia’s development needs.

Among others there are two important conclusions from our workshop: (i) We are coordinating and adjusting well with the development plans of the Mongolian Government, which is working towards democracy and a fair and prosperous society; and (ii) We will even strengthen the focus on aspects of poverty in all its dimensions to ensure that attention is paid to the most vulnerable strata of the population and social inclusion is enhanced. Questions related to poverty reduction, vulnerability and inequality in Mongolia were often addressed during our review as they are the core mandate of SDC.

What changes and implications do you see after the review of the SCS? On what will SDC’s programme be focused?

The findings and conclusions from this review will require us to make certain adjustments in our current strategy. We see that it is important to link up and streamline our projects among themselves in order to have a greater impact. This leads us to probably focus more on fewer projects that have a greater impact rather many small-scale projects.

The other conclusion was the importance of building up and linking our beneficiaries to markets. We help people with vocational education and skills to produce better. However, their products must be linked to the markets in order to make a livelihood, cover their needs and live in dignity. Also the market access will make the projects more sustainable.

Our third conclusion was related to poverty. In order to tackle this broad and multi-dimensional issue still present in Mongolia, we need to analyse more and permanently poverty issues in the framework of our action. We agreed that we need to have more insights in order to focus even more to reach the poor - our ultimate target.

We have discussed our geographical focus areas. SDC has a focus on rural development, primarily in the western region in Mongolia. Yet there were questions related to shifting the focus of target areas. Are we going urban, dealing with urban development issues? Is there any scope of change to focus on the national level?

We concluded that our work in rural areas is very relevant. These areas are not densely populated, yet they need support. This will remain within our focus. We will stay in rural areas and we will continue our cooperation, which already has a good basis and positive results. There is a lot of scope to scale up to the national level based on our extensive experience in rural areas. We work within three layers of governance structure, and we will try to feed this knowledge and experience to the upper layers, or I would say to implement at the national level.

Ulaanbaatar city is from the development perspective a challenge with its migration and spontaneous settlements around it. The municipality has a great task to deal with the rapidly growing city. SDC is already working in the ger (suburbs) districts of Ulaanbaatar with a number of small projects. In the future, we will give more consideration to working in urban areas, probably with the projects with which we have already gained good experience that can be replicated. They will not be a new thing, but we will work with those projects that have proved to be successful elsewhere.  This is the case with the new phase of Governance and Decentralisation Programme (GDP), which will be implemented soon. The principal of the GDP is not a matter of urban or rural; rather, it’s a concept that can be applied in different settings.

You’ve met several high-ranking officials in Mongolia. What are their impressions of SDC’s programme in Mongolia?

I felt very welcomed. SDC has worked here for ten years and has built up good relations with the government to the point that the two countries maintain a friendly relationship. The continuity is an important aspect in this cooperation. The new government confirms these good relations. The ministers I met were well informed on what contributions SDC is making to Mongolia’s development and they pay importance to our cooperation.

Any more comments or impressions? Maybe you can give us your general impressions on Mongolia and its people?

This is my second visit to Mongolia. I enjoyed the cold season this time. Coming in winter, I could experience the cold and the challenges that come with it. I imagine how hard it would be for people in rural areas in this harsh climate. Regarding the capital, air pollution is a big challenge which bears health concerns.

Both times I visited Mongolia, I felt good here. People are friendly, open and hospitable; you can easily make a connection with them and lead interesting in depth substantial discussions. It was also a pleasure to see so many engaged national employees of SDC working for the programmes as well as representatives of the civil society and the Government – there is a real commitment behind all this work. I wish all of them much success in their endeavours.