 |
| Mission Blog Archives |
| Avian Influenza Updates |
| Eastern Steppe Living Landscape Updates |
| Economic Policy Reform and Competitiveness (EPRC) Updates |
| FIELD Updates |
| Gobi Initiative Updates |
| GER Initiative Updates |
| Poverty Alleviation Updates |
| Judicial Reform Updates |
| Anti-Corruption Updates |
| Electoral & Parliamentary Support Updates |
| Training, Advocacy & Networking Updates |
| Related Links |
| Contact the Mission |
USAID/Mongolia |
|
The Mongolian Monitor:: August 2009 posted: 10/23/2009
August is “down time” for many Mongolians, who take vacation during the period between Nadaam (in July) and the start of the new school year (September) and fall Parliamentary session (October). Foreign tourists, meanwhile, are scattered to the four winds visiting the four corners of the country—the Hovsgol lake region in the north, the Gobi Desert in the south, the high Altai mountains in central and western Mongolia, and Serengeti-like steppe in the east. This August was no different, with spectacular clear days in the upper ‘60s (F) and everyone enjoying the crisp, clean central Asian air. July 2009 posted: 10/22/2009U.S. Senate hearings to consider the nomination of former USAID/Mongolia Mission Director Jonathan Addleton as the new US Ambassador to Mongolia were held in July. Ambassador Addleton was subsequently approved by the Senate, and should be arriving at post this fall. Massive but localized floods in late July did heavy damage in the capital of Ulaanbaatar, and also in the far-west aimag of Bayan Olgii. Twenty-eight people were killed, along with thousands of head of livestock and the loss of housing and personal effects. In response, US Ambassador Mark Minton authorized the use of $25,000 from his discretionary disaster fund to provide assistance to the victims. The money, as with past disasters, was given to the Mongolian Red Cross, in this case to provide food for the victims in the far west of the country.
June 2009 posted: 10/21/2009
On June 18 the newly-elected President of Mongolia, Tsahiagiin Elbegdorj, was sworn in at the Parliament in an inauguration ceremony that included many foreign guests, including special representative from the White House, Mr. Stanley Roth, Former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and current Vice President for International Government Relations at Boeing International. May 2009 posted: 6/11/2009
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. April 2009 posted: 5/11/2009
April 2009 will go down as a watershed month for USAID/Mongolia. For the first time in nearly a decade, the Mission's development assistance program did not include some of the best projects ever implemented in Mongolia: the Judicial Reform Project (JRP), the Gobi Initiative, and GER. While it is the end of an era, the Gobi and GER infrastructure will fortunately remain largely intact for the next few years as Mercy Corps and CHF, respectively, continue their field operations under USDA funding with a somewhat narrower agricultural focus. April was also the final month for IRI operations in Mongolia using bilateral funding, although IRI will continue to work here for a year under a grant from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). NED has also given the National Democratic Institute (NDI) a grant to work on political party and Parliamentary reform in Mongolia for a year, and Paul Rowland--NDI's Resident Representative in Indonesia--briefed USAID in April on NDI's proposed operations here. March 2009 posted: 4/6/2009As a result of FY08 budget cuts, USAID Mongolia in March 2009 saw four long running and very successful activities come to their planned end. This included the Gobi Initiative, Growing Entrepreneurs Rapidly (GER), Judicial Reform and the Mongolian Election and Parliamentary Support Projects. Fortunately, Gobi and GER type activities will be continued with the same geographic focus under the umbrella of the USDA’s ongoing Rural Agribusiness Support Project (RASP) and its new Mongolian Agribusiness Service Projects (MASP). Both projects are being funded by local currency generated by the import and monetization of wheat provided by the USDA’s FY08 Food for Progress (FfP) Program in Mongolia. February 2009 posted: 4/5/2009On 19 February, the Government of Mongolia’s (GoM) Financial Regulatory Commission (FRC) approved the Regulations for Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) developed with the technical and advocacy support of USAID’s Economic Policy Reform and Competitiveness (EPRC) Project. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed on 20 February between EPRC and the General Agency for Specialized Inspections to prepare for implementation of a Single Electronic Window for Foreign Trade Facilitation and to provide improved public access to trade policies and procedures. After weeks of negotiations and project assistance, ten freight forwarding companies signed an MoU on agreeing to establish the Logistics Park Corporation (LPC) as a Public Private Partnership (PPP) with the GoM. January 2009 posted: 2/18/2009Early in January, 250 copies of the final report on the June 2008 Mongolian parliamentary election from the Asia Pacific Development Partnership’s Observation Mission was printed and delivered by the International Republican Institute (IRI) to concerned members of Parliament, Mongolia’s General Election Commission, donors, NGOs, political parties, and others. The GoM’s Tender Evaluation Committee for construction and operation of the proposed and urgently needed Combined Heating/Power Plant #5 for the capital city met mid January to open and determine the adequacy of bids. There were 20 expressions of interest but only one bid was received by the deadline. The new Fostering an Inclusive Environment for the Disabled (FIELD) Project started-up in January. FIELD is being implementing by Mercy Corps over a two year period and is funded by USAID/W’s Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance Bureau (DCHA). December 2008 posted: 1/22/2009Mongolia experienced the normal December lull. Many USAID staff and its contractor chiefs-of-party, grantee country representatives as well as public and private sector Mongolia counterparts took leave. Nonetheless, there were two noteworthy developments. First, the company for a national Credit Information Bureau (CIB) was formally registered. The establishment of a national CIB has long been advocated by USAID Mongolia’s EPRC Project. The inaugural shareholders’ meeting held in mid December 2008 elected a Board of Directors and the first board meeting is scheduled for 9 January 2009. Secondly, the GoM’s Independent Authority Against Corruption (IAAC), established with the support of the Mission’s MACS Project, continues to pursue corruption cases successfully. On December 19, a former minister and MP received a four-year prison sentence from the court. A court date was scheduled in January for trying the case of a former Chairman of National Emergency Management Agency. Another IAAC case, which is related to the former governor of Mongolbank, was also sent to the court. November 2008 posted: 1/11/2009November was almost entirely occupied with follow-up to USAID Mongolia’s annual portfolio review, which directly fed into the preparation of the annual Mission’s Performance and Planning Report (PPR). The latter exercise was greatly facilitated by the 9-22 November visit to Mongolia of Ms. Andrea Sternberg from the F Bureau in Washington, D.C. With the advent of cold weather in Mongolia, the pace of implementation of the Mission’s major field activities such as the Gobi Initiative and the Growing Entrepreneurs Rapidly (GER) Project will be significantly reduced. Lastly, USAID Mongolia ranks were augmented by the welcome addition of Ms. Undrakh Bulgan, our new development outreach and communications (DOC) specialist. October 2008 posted: 10/1/2008
In the 17 October meeting of the Government of Mongolia (GoM)-Donor Consultative Group on Investment Climate and Private Sector Development, the Chairman, Prime Minister S. Bayar, assigned the State Property Committee (SPC) and the Ministry of Finance (MoF) the task of establishing, in collaboration with private investors, legal liability entities for: a) a single national electronic window (SEW) for trade facilitation; and b) a Logistics Facility at Zamiin-Uud on the Mongolian border with China. These proposed Public-Private Sector Partnerships (PPPs) in trade facilitation have been inspired and long advocated by USAID. September 2008 posted: 9/1/2008In September, the USAID Mission conducted field monitoring of selected projects, and initiated preparations for the end of the calendar year close outs of the successful Judicial Reform Project (JRP), Gobi Initiative (GI) and Growing Entrepreneurship Rapidly Project (GER), which have been running for the past seven, ten and six years respectively. These projects are being allowed to come to their planned end due to recent cut backs in USAID Mongolia’s annual budget. However, with the signing a $285M Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Compact late last year, it should be noted that the overall USG assistance levels to Mongolia are at a high water mark. August 2008 posted: 8/1/2008
The new Mongolian Parliament officially convened on 25 August 2008 after a series of tumultuous pre-meetings amongst its members. This was a reassuring development after the contested results of the June 29th Parliamentary election and the day of riots that ensued on July 1st. Parliament has an ambitious agenda to address in the following months, not the least of which is the proposed amendment to the national minerals law. On August 25th, USAID Mongolia obligated its FY08 funding of $4.5M through an amendment to the existing GOM-USAID Economic Growth Program Agreement which was first put into effect in 2004. The amendment was signed at the Ministry of Finance by Finance Minister Ch. Ulaan on behalf of the Government of Mongolia, and by US Ambassador Mark Minton and USAID representative Barry Primm on behalf of the United States. July 2008 posted: 7/1/2008
On July 1st, a riot broke out in the capital of Ulaanbaatar in response to opposition concerns about election fraud during the June 29th Parliamentary election vote. Five people were killed, and the headquarters of the ruling Mongolian Peoples Revolutionary Party (MPRP) was torched. Collateral fire damage also largely destroyed an adjacent national art gallery, including most of the art inside and the national moriin hur (horse head fiddle) collection. It was the first non-peaceful election in Mongolia since the return of democracy in 1991. A state of emergency was immediately declared, but the measure was lifted and peace was restored before the beginning of the national Nadaam holiday on July 11th. January 2008 posted: 1/1/2008
Senior Program Manager Jeff Goodson is expected to return in early February from home leave. The USAID Mongolia Representative returned from leave early January, and immediately was involved in planning and preparations for the 28-29 January 2008 Government of Mongolia (GoM) – External Partners Technical Meeting in Ulaanbaatar. The Meeting was attended by Ambassadors, representatives from bilateral/multilateral donors and IFIs, and foreign/domestic private sector and NGO representatives. The Meeting was chaired by the Minister of Finance with participation by key members of the GoM Cabinet of Ministers and Parliament. December 2007 posted: 12/1/2007
The normal holiday lull in project activity was intensified by a major reshuffling of personnel in the Government of Mongolia’s (GOM) Cabinet of Ministers. Key counterparts and staff in the Ministries of Finance, Fuels & Energy, and Industry & Trade were not available and project implementation suffered accordingly. January 2007 posted: 1/12/2007
 Mission News: With November’s arrival, winter has begun in earnest in Mongolia, with temperatures often reaching minus 20 Celsius and colder. Unfortunately, the onset of winter has not brought much snow, leaving herders in the Gobi worried about a black zud, which results in poor grazing in the spring due to a lack of moisture. The mission conducted a successful Annual Portfolio Review in early November in preparation for work on the 2007 Operational Plan. April 2006 posted: 4/17/2006
 Spring of a sort has come to Mongolia, complete with frequent wind and dust storms, temperatures that soar into the sixties during the day and plunge into the teens at night, and beautiful blue skies that alternate with snow flurries. Amid this background, USAID was pleased to welcome back Senior Program Manager Jeff Goodson, who returned in late March after a two-month TDY to Afghanistan. Jeff got here just in time to say hello and goodbye to Program Officer Cory Johnston, who departed at the end of the month for a four-week training rotation with our colleagues in USAID/Philippines. |
updated October 28, 2009 | download Adobe Acrobat Reader plug-in
Email the Mission | Phone: 976.11.312390
USAID Privacy Policy | USAID Website