Developing Rural Development Strategy for Mongolia

Country: Mongolia
Project Location within Country: No specific project sites

Project Duration: 1 month

Name of Client: Government of Mongolia and WB, FAO, UNDP, DFID, Ph: 312654, 312647

Total No of person-months of the project: 8

Start Date (month/year):
September 2002

Completion Date:
(month/year):
October 2002

Name of associated firm(s) if any:
Individual international consultants

No. of Person-Months of Professional
Staff Provided by Associated Firm(s): 4

Name of Senior Staff (Project Director/Co-ordinator, Team Leader) involved and functions performed
Mr. Robin Mearns, World Bank provided overall supervision and Mr. Enkh-Amgalan, CPR led the writing team.

Detailed Narrative Description of Project:
The Government and the World Bank agreed that Mongolia needed to develop a sound rural development strategy on a participatory basis that would feed into the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper. This initiative was induced by pressing need to enhance the development of the rural sector in Mongolia thus reduce rural poverty. 

• To follow up this agreement and to assist the Government the Bank engaged the services of the Center for Policy Research /CPR/ for the period of 2 months starting in September 2002.
• The assistance by the Bank in developing a rural development strategy and building consensus on it was highly appreciated by the Government.       
• Overall objective of the services by the consultant is to produce a draft rural development strategy that shall be further elaborated through broad consultation and consensus building process.

Detailed Description of Actual Services provided by your Company:

• Collected and analyzed the current and previous rural strategies and policies and  other key documents relevant to rural development
• Organized interviews and meetings with key institutions and individuals
• Elaborated methodology to develop the strategy
• Produced a draft rural development strategy in logical framework format
• Co-operated with a consultation team in communicating the strategy and building consensus
• The strategy focused on Maximum Participation of Local Bodies and Citizens, Improvement of Risk Management and Creation of an Enabling Environment for Rural Economic and Social Development.
• Targeting the improvement of risk management as a key in building the sustainable livelihoods for herders the strategy proposed to increase the interest, role and responsibility of local communities in managing natural resources by transferring ownership, custodianship and user rights to local communities.