Since 1991, IDA has supported rural development, education, improving the livability of Ulaanbaatar, ensuring sound management within the mining sector, environmental protection, policy development, and other areas.
The overall goal of the rural program has been to reduce the vulnerability of herders to pastoral risk as well as to protect and extend gains made to provide relief in cases of climate emergencies, micro-finance, telecommunications and social services to rural residents.
Between 2007 and 2013, the Rural Education and Development (READ) Project made learning materials available in rural Mongolia by establishing 3,560 classroom libraries in all 383 rural primary schools. Each school received over 160 books, benefiting a total of 130,000 students. 4,144 rural primary teachers and 383 school directors were trained. A local professional development network has been set up consisting of 95 core schools and 178 mentor teachers.
The Renewable Energy and Rural Electricity Access Project (REAP) helped the Government of Mongolia complete its National 100,000 Solar Ger Electrification Program, which provided over half a million nomadic herders with access to electricity through portable solar home systems. The project also helped fund improvements in soum (district) electrification, including rehabilitating mini-grids and installing renewable energy technology hybrid systems to power them.
In 2006, the Index-Based Livestock Insurance Project was launched initially in four aimags (provinces). In 2010, when another dzud hit Mongolia, it was expanded to cover all 21 aimags. This was the first time such a system was implemented in the world. The project introduced a new insurance scheme where payments are based on the total number of livestock lost by species and soum (district) rather than on households’ actual, individual losses. Since the program started, insurance policies have become more and more popular among herders. Every year there is an increase in the number of policies bought. After the project closed in 2015, the Government continued to support index-based livestock insurance. The 2016-2017 sale season was the highest on record.
Thanks to the Information Communications Infrastructure Development Project (ICIDP), all 330 soum centers (villages) in Mongolia received access to modern phone and Internet services, while 34 soum centers were connected to high speed internet during the project implementation in 2005-2013. Herders started using mobile phones in their day-to-day lives, with telephone call minutes made from outside of soum centers jumping from zero at the project start to about 530,000 annual minutes in 2012. Internet users in and outside soum centers continue to expand today.
The government also improved the policy and regulatory environment and promoted investments in ICT in rural areas, which ensured continued additional annual investment in the ICT sector of the country – annual investment increased from $37.6 million in 2005 to $395 million in 2013. A mechanism has been established to collect resources into a fund to finance universal access to telecommunication and Internet services.
Improving Primary Education Outcomes for the Most Vulnerable Children in Rural Mongolia Project, funded by the Japan Social Development Fund, targets the rural nomadic herders’ children in 30 soums of four provinces in Mongolia. The project introduced a home-based school preparation program for herders’ children living in remote rural areas. The level of school readiness of the children enrolled in the program have been found to be significantly higher than of those enrolled in other alternative preschool education programs.
In addition, mobile toy and book libraries have been established in 30 soums, giving opportunity for parents to borrow and use high-quality education materials with their children at home. Extracurricular after-school programs, developed under the project, are helping primary grade rural children better adapt to school and dormitory environments. Overall, more than 7,500 children between 5-10 years, 15,000 parents, 500 teachers and soum officials have benefitted from the project. The government is working to scale-up project initiatives nationwide.
Under the Livestock and Agricultural Management Project (LAMP), the government is improving rural livelihoods and food security through targeted investments to boost productivity, market access and diversification in livestock-based production systems. To date, around 200 subprojects in horticulture, value chain development, livestock health and breeding have been funded under the project, leading to increased household incomes and outputs of livestock products, better nutrition and jobs in 15 soums of 5 western aimags Zavkhan, Khuvsgul, Govi-Altai, Bayankhongor, and Arkhangai. Around 7,000 people have received trainings in livestock health, breeding, nutrition, horticulture, and environment management. The project is being implemented until December 2017.
In addition to projects, the World Bank also provides technical assistance and produces analytical reports to help inform policy and stimulate public debate. Some recent activities include:
Last Updated: Apr 11, 2017
