USAID/Mongolia :: Updates

Barry Primm went “wheels up” the first week of May, and at the end of the month a new USAID Representative to Mongolia was named. Chuck Howell, currently the Country Coordinator for Belarus working out of Kiev, Ukraine, is scheduled to arrive in September after a swearing-in ceremony in Washington. Chuck is well-known in Mongolia. He was the Peace Corps Director here from 1991-93, and he was subsequently the USAID Representative from 1995-96. After leaving Mongolia, Chuck worked in Eastern Europe, serving in the field in the former Yugoslavia, Croatia and Belarus. Chuck holds a Masters degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of International Affairs in Chinese Studies, and speaks—in addition to Thai—basic Russian and Chinese. We’re looking forward to welcoming Chuck back to the fold.

Jon O’Rourke returned to USAID/Mongolia in May, to fill in as Senior Program Manager. Jon's consummate professionalism and familiarity with some of the more complex aspects of the Mission's portfolio has already made him a very welcome addition to the USAID/Mongolia staff.

For the Mission, most of May was spent in various budget exercises—not just for FY 2009, but also for FYs 2010 and 2011. We also completed the Eisenhower Fellowship nomination exercise, including interviews with the best candidates. A TDY from the USDA Mongolia representative out of Beijing led to a number of highly productive meetings with the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry, and our computer system got a complete overhaul with new servers by a specialist team brought in from USAID/Manila.

Finally in May, Mongolia peacefully elected a new president to a four-year term. Elbegdorj, a two-time former Prime Minister and former chief of the minority Democratic Party, defeated incumbent president Enkhbayar of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party. This is Mongolia’s fifth presidential election since 1990, when a popular and largely peaceful uprising forced the shift from a single-party, pro-Soviet government to a multiparty system. Since then, Mongolia has repeatedly proven itself to be a democratic success story in a region dominated by authoritarian governments.