PROJECT GOAL

The Asia Foundation signed an agreement with the Swiss Agency forCooperation and Development to implement the Urban Governance Project(UGP) that has an overarching goal to have subnational governments that areempowered, democratic, and accountable to citizens, providing sustainableservices responding to citizen’s needs. The project will be implemented in 33ger area khoroos (subdistrict), identified across all nine districts of Ulaanbaatar,and reach 330,000 citizens. The selection of khoroos was based on thosekhoroos that rated unsatisfactorily in the 2014 Health and Safety Index conducted by the city.

PROJECT OUTCOMES AND COMPONENTS

To achieve the project goal, a set of five interrelated outputs will be attained,which address the key problems identified, including: (1) piloting of innova-tive civic engagement measures on participatory budgeting resulting moreinclusive citizens participation; (2) priority improvements to local public ser-vice delivery funded through a competitive grant; (3) a comprehensive capa-bility strengthening program developed and piloted to empower ger area resi-dents to improve interactions with local government; (4) a comprehensivecapability strengthening program developed for Ulaanbaatar governments tobecome more participatory, transparent, and accountable in their interactionswith citizens; and (5) institutionalization of the capacity-building efforts forboth citizens and local officials.

PROJECT AREAS

Participatory Budgeting – The Integrated Budget Law (IBL) that came intoeffect in January 2013 aims to improve reporting of government liabilitiesand strengthen public investment planning. One of the law’s major results isthat it introduced the authority of the Local Development Fund (LDF) tolocal governments both in rural areas and in Ulaanbaatar. The IBL is the first

Urban Governance Project in Mongolia

FACTSHEET

URBAN GOVERNANCE PROJECTJuly 2015 – December 2018

Partners | The Municipality of Ulaanbaatar,Open Society Forum, TransparencyInternational-Mongolia, and DemocracyEducation Center

Support | The UGP project is generously funded by the Swiss Agency for Developmentand Cooperation and supported by theMunicipality of Ulaanbaatar under theGovernance and Decentralization ProgrammePhase II.

Implementation | The Asia Foundation willimplement these activities in close cooperationwith World Bank’s Sustainable Livelihoods IIIand its Mainstreaming Social Accountability inMongolia projects, and the United NationsDevelopment Program and its CapacityStrengthening of Local Self-Governing Bodies.Collaboration with the Governance andDecentralization Programme Phase II will beensured for other components focused on civicengagement, decentralization policy support,local governance and civic engagement imple-mented by the Office of the President, Ministryof Finance and Cabinet Secretariat.

Since the 1990s, Mongolia has undergone dramatic political and economic transitions. As a result, the Mongolianeconomy, fueled by a mining boom, has become one of the fastest growing in the world. Rapid economic growthhas spurred significant rural-urban migration as employment opportunities and living conditions are perceived tobe better in Ulaanbaatar. With a population of 1.36 million people according to 2014 figures, almost half of thecountry’s three million people now live in the capital city. However, with a lack of affordable housing and limitedspace in Ulaanbaatar, migrants from the countryside mostly settle in ger districts, which have become sprawlingunplanned neighborhoods. Dramatic income inequality between the residents of the ger districts and those livingin more central apartment areas continue to rise, with the highest level of poverty concentrated in the ger districts.

In the baseline assessment conducted in May 2015 a sample size of 833 residents, khoroo and district officialswere surveyed to provide their perceptions on the most pressing issues in their communities. Citizens, khoroo,and district staff were asked to select the three most pressing issues in their district or khoroo.

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MONGOLIAOrient Plaza 3rd Floor G. Chagdarjav Str. 9Ulaanbaatar, 14210 MongoliaTel: 976 (11) 330-524Fax: 976 (11) 311-497mongolia.general@asiafoundation.org

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law that prescribes public consultations and inputsto government decision making. According to thebaseline survey, 82% of the respondents in the 33project khoroos do not know about the LocalDevelopment Fund. While consulting with citizens,especially on the allocation of funds, is new tomany Mongolians, citizen participation and over-sight needs to be bolstered in all aspects of localgovernment decision making, including problemidentification, service assessments, and LDF alloca-tion. The UGP aims to improve the absence of atransparency mechanism or straightforward selec-tion criteria, providing a significant opportunityand motivation to improve meaningful citizenengagement.

Service Delivery – According to the baseline survey,service delivery challenges remain an issue in pro-ject khoroos. Access and quality of kindergartens(including overcrowding) were the lowest rated service (2.6 out of 5), followed by street and livingenvironment, land-related services, and SME/business training and loans. All other services wererated “fair” or higher. UGP will utilize citizenscorecards to identify priority service improve-ments and then provide small grants to serviceproviders to implement them through a competi-tive fund. UGP will also support the municipality’sadministrative decentralization of pro-poor services,piloting the delivery of targeted social welfare ser-vices at the khoroo level. The municipality is plan-ning to shift 5-10 social welfare related servicesover the next few years that are mostly aimed atpoor and disadvantaged citizens, and women.

Citizens’ Capability Strengthening (women andmen) – Given that there are approximately 3,000-4,000 households in each of the project’s 33khoroos, UGP will empower citizens to share

information within and across households to over-come the challenges to reach all khoroo residentsgiven the target size of the project. UGP willstrengthen citizen capabilities utilizing the trainingguides developed for the urban context, which will then be used in a dynamic training of trainersto mobilize active citizens, including kheseg volun-teers who will serve as peer trainers. After thetraining, UGP will expand the project to ensurewider use the materials by developing and dis-seminating e-guides through website and mobileapplications.

Governments’ capability strengthening – As notedby the baseline survey, more than half of the publicofficial respondents stated that they mostly partici-pated in irregularly planned trainings, which showsthat the subnational government organizations donot have training programs and planning in placeand tend to provide trainings when presented withan opportunity. UGP will work with a team ofurban governance experts from professional andeducational organizations to develop module-basedtraining programs for Municipality of Ulaanbaatarstaff at various levels.

Institutionalization of the capability-strengtheningprograms – To ensure that the comprehensivetraining initiatives developed under Citizens’ andGovernments’ Capability strengthening sustainbeyond the life of the project, UGP will institu-tionalize the programs in a selected educationalinstitution. UGP will strengthen the capacity ofthe selected institution to serve as training hub,and also support the municipality to systemize itstraining approach, build a professional develop-ment culture within the city government and itsstaff, and promote opportunities for emergingwomen leaders.

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SERVICES CITIZENS KHOROO STAFF DISTRICT STAFF

Land allocation, planning and management 12% 13.3% 15.0%

Air pollution 11% 5.1% 20%

Soil pollution 10% 13.8% 6.7%

Unemployment 14.2% 13.8% 5%

Livelihoods level 8.2% 9.2% 6.7%

Landscape enhancement (street lighting, playground, green space) 12.5% 14.3% 8.3%

Accessibility to and quality of education services 7.3% 11.2% 10%

Accessibility to and quality of health services 4.5% 3.6% 6.7%

Safety and crime 3.5% 3.1% 5%

Public utility services (public works): drinking water supply, wastemanagement and electricity supply 7.2% 3.1% 8.3%

Infrastructure, road, and transportation 9.6% 9.7% 8.3%

Total 100% 100% 100%