Green Gold Project: Mongolian Herders’ Pasture Management Practice featured at Milano Expo 2015
Local news,
05.05.2015
A Mongolian herders’ initiative to revitalise traditional collective management for the restoration of degraded rangelands was named the Best Practices for Sustainable Development (BPSD) at the 2015 Milano Expo.
“Mongolian herders not only use rangeland resources to sustain their livelihoods; they also have a bigger role of environmental stewardship, to care for and maintain their homeland,” said Green Gold Project Manager Ts. Enkh-Amgalan.
“We are encouraged that our project was selected among the best practices for managing natural resources at this universal expo.”
The expo - the Universal Exhibition that Milan, Italy, is hosting from May 1 to October 31, 2015 – is dedicated to promoting food security and saving resources.
Last year, the expo called for successful projects, services, products and scientific solutions for submission in the BPSD competition.
Among 749 evaluated projects from more 130 participating countries, 18 were selected as the winners to be featured at the expo. SDC’s Green Gold Project was among the winners and was featured in a documentary at the expo.
The aim of the competition was to share the best ways of identifying tangible solutions for food security and the saving of resources that meet the needs of developing countries.
More than 20 million people from throughout the world will visit the expo in six months.
To read more about the Green Gold Project featured at the Expo:
The Swiss Cooperation Strategy (SCS) with Mongolia 2013-2016 was approved in 2012 based on the scenario of a booming economy and the political will to opt for democratic institutions and the decentralisation of power. However, the economic situation has since deteriorated and inequalities in society are perceived to be widening. In this context, SDC in Mongolia conducted an internal review on its current strategy.
“Onsite Insights” talked about the findings with the head of SDC’s East Asia Division, Denise Luethi, who undertook the review.
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.
