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| Present State and Perspectives of Nomadism in a Globalizing World, August 2004 The Foreign Donor and NGO
Community’s Policies toward Pastoral Nomadism in Mongolia
in the Post-Socialist Era “… the virtual collapse of the economic base of most provincial centres is resulting in extreme spatial inequalities in economic development. Economic growth has been highly concentrated to Ulaanbaatar and a few adjacent centres, while most of the rest of the country is sliding back into primitive subsistence animal husbandry. The geographic disintegration of the economy and the increasing isolation of large parts of the country and of the population pose a severe threat not only to long term economic development, but also to territorial integrity and to the long term survival of Mongolia as an integral, independent and sovereign nation.”(Bruun, 1999)
The major goals of the foreign donor and
NGO community to assist Mongolia in its transformation from a socialist,
command economy to a democratic, free market society have remained
quite consistent in these last 14 years since the collapse of communism.
For example, Mongolia has been heavily dependent on official development assistance (ODA). In the 1990s 24% of the gross domestic product (GDP) came from foreign aid. From 1991 to 2000 total ODA was almost US$1.9 billion, an enormous amount of money for a country of only 2.5 million people. (McKinley, 2001, pg. 135) In fact, Mongolia is the 5th most aid dependent developing country in the world. Opinions are numerous on the question of whether or not this money has been used wisely. This paper will analyze the type and quality of foreign and NGO assistance, examine specific policies, and focus on achievements and the challenges to the goal of truly bettering the lives of the nomads. Such an analysis is important because it is the rural sector which employs about 50% of the labor force—up from 33% at the start of the democratic era. (Sundaram, 2000, pg. 17) Intimately tied to the traditional nomadic lifestyle, this sector’s share of GDP grew from 30% in 1990 to 37% in 1998. This, despite the total collapse of Mongolia’s domestic animal processing industry, the irregular availability of traditional foreign markets for its huge meat resources, serious reversal of rural primary and secondary school attendance rates, devastating successive years of droughts and winter disasters called dzuds, and numerous studies documenting falling productivity and growing poverty among the migratory herdsmen. (Griffin, 2001) Furthermore, despite the importance of the agricultural livestock sector to the country, it has been nearly ignored by the Mongolian Government, which has spent only 1.8% of its budget on crop agriculture and livestock programs. (ADB, 2001-2002 Appendix 1-3, Table A3.1) The many players in the international donor and NGO community have urged the Mongolian Government consistently during the years of transition to focus on economic development. It is clear that the foreign donors have seen economic development in the cities as the priority—“donors were reluctant to allocate resources to rural development until Mongolia was hit by the devasting dzud of 1999/2000. Support of herders was absent from aid projects, even though previous reports…had highlighted the problem. During the 1990s, only about five per cent of all ODA was allocated to agricultural development (which includes livestock).” (Griffin, 2001, pg. 137) In fact, the Mongolian Ih Hural in its 1996 Resolution on Concept of Development of Mongolia (a 15-20 year perspective) said that Mongolia’s goal is to be an “Industrialised Country with comparative independence and export-oriented economy based on intelligence and new technology.” This emphasis on science and technology for development is continued in the 1999 Mongolian Government Paper on Social Sector Issues and Strategies. Its document on Medium-Term Economic and Social Development Strategy 1999-2000 states the four goals as: 1) privatization and land reform; 2) structural reform in the banking and financial sector, 3) infrastructure reform including energy, roads, air, and rail, and 4) promotion of export-oriented animal product industries, mining and tourism. Finally, the 8 Mongolian Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) state the overall priorities for the nation through 2015 are to reduce poverty and foster democratic governance. The Democratic Era since 1990 Economic activity in Mongolia for centuries was based on migratory livestock breeding. One third of its GDP during the last decades of the socialist era (1921-1990) came from Soviet assistance, in the attempt to move the economy away from nomadism and towards sedentary industrialization. In the mid-1950s, over 90% of the population were rural herders, but by 1990 only 33% of employment was still in the livestock/agricultural sector. Nomads with their herds were brutally collectivized in the 1930s, but this campaign failed. The 2nd collectivization campaign in the 1950s succeeded, and private herding was nearly eliminated. Literacy among the nomads was said to be (by the communist government) almost 100% in 1990. Small industrial cities were created in the 1960s around mining operations and light industrial factories, but the majority of these state enterprises soon went bankrupt or were privatized in the first years of the 1990s, and population moved away. The country moved into deep recession from 1992-1997 with collapse of the command economy, as the country eased price controls, liberalized domestic and international trade, and started the restructuring of the banking and energy sectors. People had left the failing industrial cities and provincial (aimag) centers to resume nomadic pastoralism or to move to the one functioning city, the capital Ulaanbaatar. Herds were privatized in 1992-93, and the rural population was immediately needed to provide food to their impoverished urbanized fellow citizens. With NO influx of foreign donor aid or Mongolian Government funds, livestock herds almost doubled in numbers to around 34 million head by 1999. New “cityboy nomads” moved to the countryside to take up herding, particularly of cashmere goats, which were the most profitable, because their hair easily found international markets, especially in China. However, with consecutive dzuds for 3 years in 1999-2002, 4 million of head of livestock (especially goats) perished and agriculture’s contribution to GDP declined significantly. Donor and NGO programs and monies to assist people in the countryside stepped in where the Mongolian Government did not. The re-absorption of so many unemployed from the cities back into the countryside and into nomadic life became a phenomenon that finally attracted the attention of the foreign donor and NGO community, but only because the rural economy is now blamed by UNDP experts for much of the poverty in the country. In 2003 GDP per capita was $1,800. In 2002
20% of GDP came from the agricultural sector, 21% from industry,
and 58% from services. Mongolian population below the poverty line
was estimated in UNDP studies to be 36%, with no improvement in
the most recent 5 years. However, there was improvement in employment
numbers, and the national unemployment rate in 2001 was 4.6%. The good news is that today the foreign donor and NGO community recognizes to some extent the importance of the rural sector to Mongolia’s development and the necessity of making efforts to reform the sector, because it is the seat of serious problems which impact on the whole nation’s future. The UNDP and Government of Sweden issued a 2003 study on the effectiveness of herd restocking strategies on poverty alleviation. 3000 herding families in 7 aimags were given thousands of livestock on credit to restock animals lost in 1999-2001 dzuds. One of the most important conclusions was that investment needs to go beyond restocking, and into establishing a new animal husbandry environment including marketing. (UNDP/SIDA, “Poverty Research, Examination of Effectiveness,” 2003) A second research report identified lifestock
issues related to trade and industry from raw materials to marketing
(via a survey of 1000 herders in 5 different regions—Zavhan,
Ovorkhangai, Khentii and Dornod, Omnogobi, and Selenge) This is
an excellent picture of nomadic economic life today. Among its conclusions
were: government support is necessary for savings and loans, and
cooperatives; herders need increased knowledge to adapt to weather
and market changes for the sake of profit and to eliminate the mentality
that their losses from natural disasters will be solved by outsiders;
herders’ income is low because of current few inadequate channels
for selling raw materials; and that the sums’ development
must follow diverse models not just one model, so local government
can be more responsive to herders. (UNDP/SIDA, “Poverty Research,
Options,” 2004) This project is the successor to a study funded by the Government of New Zealand and the UNDP in 2002 on “Developing and Piloting a Sustainable Development Model for the Extensive Livestock Industry.” (Morton, 2002) One of the major premises of that project was that it should strengthen customary communities, involving kinship relations but not kinship-based rather locality-based. Three sites were chosen in Erdene sum in Tov Aimag, Bayanonder sum in Ovorkhangai Aimag, and Baatsaagan sum in Bayanhongor Aimag, because the pilot sought to cover the main agro-ecological zones in Mongolia. The herders were seeking new modes of collaboration different from compulsory collectivism of the negdel period and individualism of the transition years, and experimented with registering herding groups as NGOs. Groups consisted of poor, middle, and wealthy herders, and were offered loans for fodder and veterinary drugs. The major objective of the pilot project was the recognition “of existing possession and use rights of herders over pastoral resources by registering them.” (Morton, 2002, pp. 20-21) Possession rights were granted by the sum governor for 60 years, according to a contract under the powers of the Land Law of 1994. The project considered one of its most important achievements that it demonstrated such contracts could be drawn up by making the herders’ groups legal NGO entities. (Morton, 2002, pp. 21) Herdsmen felt such contracts enabled them to protect their winter grazing, but it was found that there was a need for training herders in pasture management, since so many were new to nomadism. The pasture possession rights contracts in the pilot project raised several long-term issues: What were the implications of the new Land Law? How are communities receiving possession rights defined? What are possession rights for winter/spring versus four-season periods? Can contracts in the case of dzud be overridden? What is the duration of the rights? How is inheritance of NGO herder membership to be handled? (Morton, 2002, pg. 22) In Lessons Learnt and Recommendations, the pilot project recommended the successor projects be of 5 years duration not 18-months; community development should be phased in before formally incorporating the NGO, and only then introduce grants and funds; the project should avoid imposing special mechanisms for poor herders, which were disliked and could weaken mutual support; be more receptive to women herders’ suggestions for loans for vegetable production and sewing; fodder funds should be a major activity of the project on the basis of a revolving fund. Finally, the pilot project saw the need to work closely with sum governments to develop contract forms for possession rights, learn land-use mapping, and strengthen information sharing among herding groups, sum, and aimag authorities. (Morton, 2002, pg. 34) It appears clear that these suggestions were all incorporated into the succeeding UNDP/Government of Netherlands’ “Sustainable Grasslands Management” project. The UNDP and World Bank have advised the Mongolian Government in its National Poverty Alleviation Programme to look at ways to help rural and urban households establish small businesses within the market economy. The NPAP has a decentralized organization structure with poverty alleviation councils at the sum level with local labor and women’s organizations to provide imput. $19 million (1994-2000) has been contributed by 16 different donors. (Mongolia Independent Evaluation of NPAP, 1999) The World Bank support includes pastoral risk management, micro-finance outreach, a community investment fund, and renovation of rural schools and hospitals. Among the projects are preparation of sum land use maps, revolving herder community risk funds, hay and fodder development and management, micro-finance for herders, emergency restocking of livestock , and even livestock loss insurance. (Morton, 2002, pg. 7 and World Bank representative, 15 July 2004) The ADB has begun implementation of the Agriculture Sector Development Program with loans totaling US$17 million. Policy objectives include promoting competitive markets for agricultural goods, improving rural financial services, and increasing productivity in extensive livestock production. It established a Green Revolution Program working with the Ministry of Agriculture and small Mongolian NGOs, such as The Horticultural Society (its budget of $20,000 over 3 years worked on expanding family-based micro-businesses especially vegetable growing into rural settlements because of Soros Open Society funds, but the Society did not receive any ADB money nor did any other small NGO). The Agricultural Program also has a US$700,000 technical assistance package to provide training for cooperatives and facilitate more sustainable pasture management at the sum and aimag level. (Morton, 2002, pg. 6) The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has designed a 6-year rural poverty alleviation project for Arhangai, Khubsgol, Bulgan, and Khentii aimags for a cost of US$16.6 million. The multi-faceted project will seek to improve livestock and range management by integrating herder camps into groups at the bag level, prepare resource maps with seasonal pastures and hay fields market, issue possession certificates, restore wells, assist with hay production, rehabilitate veterinary laboratories, set up a dzud emergency fund, and lend money to herders. (Morton, 2002, pp. 6-7) The USAID program since the middle-1990s has recognized the importance of establishing the foundation for an effective rural civil society, with projects directed towards road building and environmental protection/biodiversity. Its Gobi Regional Economic Growth Initiative, managed by Mercy Corps, has a new four-year, US$18 million project to help herders in Dundgobi, Zavhan, Ovorhungai, Uvs, Arkhangai, Bayanhongor, Tuv, Khubsgol, and Gobisumber to increase herder productivity, improve veterinary servies, establish revolving fodder funds, improve management of water sources and supply, increase credit to herders, and stimulate the creation of new rural businesses. (Morton, 2002, pg. 8) The U.S. Peace Corps moved quickly into aimag capitals and other rural communities to provide community development and English training. The British Council’s English language program in the secondary schools also was nationwide in its scope. Demand for restocking led to the UK pilot restocking project implemented by SCF/UK. TACIS, funded by the European Union (Euro 2.9 million), has been active in the extensive livestock sector in the eastern, western, and central regions, although its emphasis has been integrating animal production more efficiently into crop farms. It also is working to promote meat exports and improve dairy, wool, and cashmere production and processing. (Morton, 2002, pg. 8) FAO has funded two projects in the livestock sector. One on “Pastoral Risk Management Strategy” with US$282,000 in funding is to improve the livelihoods and food security of pastoral herders, and do disaster management planning. (FAO, TCP/MON/0066 A) The second project, “Provision of Animal Health Inputs and Animal Feed to Assist the Restoring of Severely-Affected Households in Snowstorm-Affected Areas” (US$400,000) is a dzud emergency restocking plan. (FAO, TCP/MON/00067 E) The International Development Research Centre has begun an environmental research project on “Sustainable Management of Common Natural Resources in Mongolia.” It aims at the community level to study three selected ecosystems, develop with herder groups management options, and conduct pilot projects with the herders. (Morton, 2002, pp. 8-9) This record is a great improvement, especially if compared to the beginning years of Mongolia’s transition, when basic knowledge and recognition of the rural sector’s debilitated conditions after 70 years of mismanagement and attack were not recognized at all by the foreign donor community. This is evidenced by the IMF April 1991 study by Milne et al called “The Mongolian People’s Republic—Toward a Market Economy.” This report noted that Ulaanbaatar in 1989 held one-fourth of the nation’s then 2.1 million population, Mongolian industry was concentrated in processing of livestock by-products employing 20% of the labor force in various industrial cities, while agriculturalists (both crop and livestock) workers represented 29%. Its “Medium-term Path of Reform” section made no mention of a rural sector with the special features of a barter economy. The importance of the woolen textiles, hides, leather, coats, and processed and live animal light industries (which almost do not exist today in Mongolia) are evidenced not by analysis, but through carefully examining the accompanying export product charts. In those early years, foreign donor multi-lateral and bilateral assistance, including the vast majority of USAID, Japanese assistance and ADB funds, was poured into staving off constant winter heating and electricity crises by keeping Ulaanbaatar’s power plants running, providing emergency food aid to the urban communities, and making minimal renovations to the capital airport—which gobbled up hundreds of millions of dollars. The donors supported democracy and NGO building capacity programs to promote legal, constitutional, and administrative reforms, within the capital. The one good thing during the early period was that the livestock cooperatives (negdels) were the first to be dismantled and herds were privatized. At least the Mongolian Government and the foreign donor community did not delay this process. However, this occurred not because these actors wanted to give special assistance to the rural population. Rather, it was done first because privatizing this sector seemed easier than dismantling the socialist-era bankrupt state industrial enterprises. Bottom line: Mongolia after 14 years of massive foreign donor aid is a stable, if unpredictable, democratic country that has had 5 successful nationwide democratic elections. It has brought its early 1990s’ 325% inflation rate down to single digits in the 21st Century, and increased its per capita annual income from under $600 to $1800. Despite poverty it can and usually does feed its own population, and rural Mongolia has benefited in many ways from these accomplishments. Herds are up about 30% from the socialist era with an 180% increase in herders. The banking system and the monetary economy have been extended to the countryside, and herder income and access to consumer goods are substantially greater. The Agricultural Bank has been giving herders loans since August 2001. As of March 2003 8.7% of all Agricultural Bank’s loans were to herders (UNDP, “Options”, 2004, pg. 51), even though such loan delivery has met only 4-8% of the demand (UNDP, “Options”, pg. 50) In summary, nomadic life which was dying in Mongolia in the 1980s, has revived considerably during the democratic era. Challenges: 1. Longstanding antagonism towards nomadism and ignorance about Mongolia’s rural ecology, epitomized by the call for Mongolia to adopt ranching. There is an unspoken and spoken assumption among 20th century economists, foreign donor experts, and even members of the Mongolian Government that Mongol nomads can be made into ranchers. Even the great Mongolist Owen Lattimore in 1940 accepted this idealized version of Mongolian economic life. (“Mobility is no longer sovereign; the economy remains basically pastoral but the society need no longer be nomadic.” Lattimore, 1980 [1940], pg. 68) In 2000 the UNDP funded report “Medium-Term Economic and Social Development Strategy, Options Post 2000 NPAP” recommends “the feasibility and desirability of moving towards a ranch-like organization structure for livestock production and reorganization of large-scale crop production businesses into medium-sized family farms.” UNDP Resident Representative Menon and Prime Minister Enkhbayar often have expressed the same views. Yet, a move to ranching cannot be supported
by the Mongolian environment with its sparse vegetation. Nomadism
can only be abandoned if Mongol herdsmen move from grazing cattle
to fodder-fed stock. Then the overwhelming and so-far unanswerable
question becomes how can sufficient fodder be grown in a climate
so hostile to normal agriculture, always remembering that today
Mongolia has less than 1% of its land under cultivation. Now is
the time the environmental scientists and biologists to stand up
and explain the ecological facts to the foreign donors and Mongolian
policymakers, or show us how a “ranching” model will
work and be sustainable. Even the UNDP’s continued use of
the term “extensive” livestock economy, instead of nomadism,
is an indication of the refusal to accept the economic lifestyle
which is supporting the herders’ traditional cultural and
tradition. The time for theorizing or dreaming by the foreign and
Mongol economists is long past—good livestock raising development
policies must be based on reality. This point of view is supported by Kevin Chang in his analysis of Mongolia’s transition. He noted that neither education nor employment made a major contribution to Mongolia’s economic growth, but livestock raising was “a principal engine of Mongolia’s quick recovery during the second half of the 1990s, although its share in GDP has been declining since 1999.” (Chang, 2003, pg. 4, 10) However, today the foreign donor agencies such as the UNDP denigrate this contribution and in fact see the return of Mongols to the countryside as a failure: “As a result of the collapse of employment opportunities in the aimag and sum centres, the number of herders and animals grew during the first half of the 1990s.” “The absence of alternative livelihood opportunities means that dependence on the livestock economy will continue especially for the poorest.” (UNDP Website, Menon, “Strengthening,” 3.31.2003) The elasticity of the rural sector to accept quickly tens of thousands of new workers has been criticized by studies such as Keith Griffin’s Poverty Reduction in Mongolia (2001) for the UNDP. He emphasizes the lowering of productivity among the herders because the animals only increased 30% while the number of people increased 183% in one decade. While the math is correct, the assumptions are not. What was the better alternative—for Mongols to sit idle and hungry in the cities? Many of the foreign donor agencies actually are hostile to rural life and see Mongolia’s rural sector with its different culture and simpler way of living as intrinsically backward and poor. Settled life and industrial work are seen as “modern” and “good”. The July 2001 UNDP “Integrating Poverty Reduction Study” “suggests that recovery and development of the industrial sector is the key to employment, broad based growth and poverty reduction.” (UNDP Website, Menon, 11.26.2002) Even the refusal by many experts to use the term “nomadism”, preferring “extensive livestock raising” (ADB, Audit Report, Nov. 2002) is a conscious denial of the existence and viability of the nomadic lifestyle, which only increases the foreign donors misperceptions about rural life. The assumption is that migratory herders do not want to live that way if they had other choices. Lack of knowledge about migratory societies and Mongolia’s own experience with sedentarization is behind these notions. It would be beneficial if foreign advisers and NGO workers would read the works of Mongolian anthropologists and researchers of nomadic societies such as Carl Philip Saltzman to gain a better understanding and respect for the nomadic mentality. (Saltzman, 1980) 3. Rural poverty is caused by too many herders, who degrade pastureland, and by severe dzuds. The NPAP was established in 1994 to reduce the 26.5% poor to 10% or less by 2000. In the NPAP’s original set of goals, specifically helping nomads or herders never was mentioned. (Batkin, Independent Evaluation of NPAP, 1999, pp 65-6) Mid-term evaluation in December 1996 corrected this deficit with major emphasis on alleviating rural poverty. The revised goals called for development of small and medium enterprises for processing agricultural products and market animal products, policy reform regarding land tenure, and support for herders’ organizations, and restocking poor families’ livestock. However, from the $19 million collected by the World Bank for these purposes, by 1999 only $11.1 million or 59% of the funds were distributed among only 36,400 households (19% of the estimated 192,000 poor households in the country. (Batkin, Evaluation of NPAP, 1999, pg. 46, 53) It is not clear how many off these 36,400 households were nomadic, but at least 21,000 or 60% of the households were paid for construction projects not involving herders. This means very little of the NPAP money could have reached the herders. In fact, the herder restocking fund of $125,866 out of the $11.1 million spent represents a mere 1% of all the poverty funds.. In its March 24, 2000 Partnership Agreement between the Government of Mongolia and the ADB, its 2000-2005 strategy was based on the fact that “poverty is mainly found in urban areas.” (Point 8) This Agreement’s measurement benchmarks in the areas of poverty, human development, and economic conditions never mention herders, nomads or the livestock industry at all. Nevertheless, economic studies in the last several years indicate that instead of decreasing poverty after almost 9 years of the NPAP, poverty has not decreased but increased to 36% of the Mongol population, (UNDP, Menon, 11.26, 2002; Griffin, 2001), and suddenly the herders and the dzuds are scapegoated for the increase. The UNDP therefore has called for more effective Government intervention in the economy. For example, Griffin recommends the return to livestock collective farms (seemingly unaware or unconcerned by the sad history of forced collectivization endured by the Mongols). The UNDP conducted a Lessons Learnt exercise after the 1999-2001 winter dzuds when more than 4 million animals were lost. The study found a major problem was the lack of preparedness and that much of the assistance ($8.23 million in 1999-2000 and $24 million in 2000-2001) came too late. It recommended longer term strategies to revitalize the economy of the countryside and worried about the psychological effect, poor rural nutrition, and negative school attendance of dzuds. However, to my knowledge the historical studies on the repetitive nature of dzuds, as a factor in the calculation of livestock breeders in Central Asia, much like US farmers in the Midwest must contend with drought, have not even been planned for by the foreign donor advisors. (LeGrand, 2001) To be sure, it is important to research the stresses on the carrying capacity of the steppe land made by the successful privatization of herds and entrance of new nomads from the city who are uneducated in the migratory life-cycle. While desertification and over-grazing are real problems in the countryside, there is ample evidence that the inappropriate socialist-style crop farming agricultural techniques and regional water supply issues have caused just as great negative impacts. Some scholars even maintain much pastureland actually is underused (Janzen 2001, pg. 236) or not over-grazed (Griffin, 2001, pg. 68) What we do know after looking at the UNDP sponsored “Living Standards Measurement Survey 1998” is that rural unemployment is the lowest in Mongolia at less than 5%. In fact, the UNDP/SIDA in 2004 concluded that Mongol herders roughly could be dived into rich (20%), middle-income (40%), and poor (40%) (UNDP/SIDA, 2004, pg. 16) The highest rates are in the aimag centres (31.7%) and in Ulaanbaatar (28.5%). Sundaram concludes that when examining the data between “not poor” and “poor” in rural areas, the distinction is not based on education, while in urban areas, especially Ulaanbaatar, education is the key factor. This then is the likely explanation for the great concern among donor groups regarding falling school attendance in rural areas. As a social good, a literate informed electorate has been presumed “a good” to be striven for. Even favorable studies on nomadism in Mongolia seek to “eliminate cultural backwardness of the herders.” (UNDP/SIDA, “Herd Restocking,”2003, pg. 77) Yet, it is clear that formal education, at least as it is now constituted in Mongolia, is not connected to the economic success or failure as a migratory herder. 4. The creation of 2 Mongolian cultures and the efficacy of foreign donor and foreign NGO assistance to the rural sector. Posted on the UNDP website is the report that the gap between rural and urban economy in Mongolia is increasing dramatically. UN Representative Menon has commented that in the “Mongolia’s Human Development Report 2003,” “The focus of this report is on the growing disparities between urban and rural Mongolia, especially between Ulaanbaatar and the rest of the country.” This author also has written on the subject of the creation of 2 cultures—one urban and one nomadic for over five years (Campi, )However, if this gap is indeed growing, then the key issue for us is whether the donor community and its programs are meeting the goals of its envisaged strategy of development, or are they, in fact, contributing to the emergence of the two distinct cultures and widening the gap? This is a very complex issue which deserves
greater discussion; however, my desire is to just conclude my remarks
with a few observations: Similar questions could be asked of the U.S. Government. Since one of its main programs in the last few years in the rural area has been improving the management of natural resources around Lake Khubsgul, why has it dropped its promised support for constructing a new road from Moren up to Khubsgol with a cheaper, non-polluting asphalt substitute? The economy of that region cannot measurably improve if tourism and local industry are not facilitated by improving the miserable roads. Certainly erosion will be worsened by the continued neglect. B. This then leads into the concept of the Millenium Road. In general, foreign donor organizations are not enthusiastic about this idea to create an east-west road to link the capital with the aimag centers. Their interest lies on a north-south route through Ulaanbaatar to the Chinese border. Yet, if an east-west road is not made, how can local industry prosper and why would people stay in decaying countryside cities? We cannot continue to bemoan the concentration of people in Ulaanbaatar, which is now more than one-third of the nation’s population, but do little to enrich or create infrastructure and communications throughout the country. Studies indicate that Mongolian animal by-products are not being processed and sold into foreign markets because of lack of modern sanitary production and transport difficulties. Aimag financial projects of $4000 or $8000 such as World Bank seed money, will not result in the construction of any modern slaughterhouse or leather factory to rectify this situation. To expect foreign investment to do this with no roads and local infrastructure is not realistic. Such investment is possible in mining where returns can be enormous, but for regional processing factories which truly create more technically-based employment opportunities, substantial foreign investment in the mid-term will be minimal. Even the concept of reasonably-priced mobile slaughterhouses, which would solve the sanitation and transport problems and be available to go to dzud areas to exploit in a positive way animal loss, has not found funding despite years of discussion with TACIS and the Mongolian Government. C After years of talking about the failure of the public educational system to be responsive to the needs of nomadic children, why has there been no change in curriculum? UNDP and foreign donor and NGO organizations have for several years known about the falling school attendance rates in the countryside. Reactions to this growing problem have been to put money into fixing rural school infrastructure and some teacher training. Yet, despite much advice, real reform of the vocational school centers and curriculum reform to reflect the needs and interests of herders have been ignored. In fact, only one aimag even includes the “herdsman” study area in its Vocational Training School curriculum. Why does vocational education have to begin in the 9 and 10th grades, as in socialist times? Why shouldn’t it be placed in elementary school curricula as an inducement for parents to keep their children in school? In a December 1996 UNDP/GOM NPAP Evaluation Mission Team Report noted the demand for training in rural areas, which was repeated by the 1999 Evaluation’s (pg. 21) conclusion to train rural people in animal product processing. Income Generation Funds in 1998 and 1999 were focused on cities, aimag and sum centers, and not available to herders, which even World Bank experts saw as shortsighted (Balkin, NPAP Evaluation, 1999, pg. 20). Again, such gaps in education were noted by the UNDP’s own study by Sundaram, but the pattern of placing funds into modernizing Ulaanbaatar’s educational facilities continues. Even Sudaram’s recommendations on vocational teaching reforms are inconsistent. He speaks of costs in education following economies of scale and recommends not placing modernized training facilities in every aimag but doing this regionally. Following this suggestion, however, then will inevitably lead to some aimag capitals benefiting while others fall further behind, thus furthering the lack of balance in national rural-urban culture and economics. D. The ever continuing problem of corruption or high administrative costs. In the UNDP’s Urban Poverty Pilot Project, one of the major findings was that outreach by international projects and programs “has been relatively ineffective.” Many of the poor do not know about the existence of the programs or cannot access them. One can organize all the local district groups, but if the money disappears into the Ministries such as the ADB’s $1.5 million Green Revolution horticultural money did into the Ministry of Agriculture over several years, and is not dispensed, then building local capacity will have limited effect. Furthermore, the more money spent on relieving Ulaanbaatar poverty, the more the poor will be attracted to the city and the greater the drain on the other cities in Mongolia. Some of the agricultural policies implemented by the foreign donor community and the Government of Mongolia have been wasteful or even failures. Recent UNDP studies have rightly concluded that simply restocking herds without improving the quality and marketability of the animals and their by-products is not a successful, sustainable strategy. The most shocking example of mismanagement of agricultural funds is buried within the ADB’s Program Performance Audit of its 1995-1998 $35 million (ASP) agricultural loan (ADB, Audit Report, 2002). First, there is no actual statistical breakdown of how the funds were spent on its 5 major loans or of the ADB administration costs. The report conceals the depth of the failure of the whole program by using generalized terms to rate the success of the 31 policy measures under 10 policy objectives. Since financial data is non-existent, it is impossible to verify if a specific program really is ‘successful’, ‘partly successful’, or the extent of any ‘failure’. However, the text of the Audit Report clearly indicates: “The objectives of ensuring the sustainability of the extensive livestock and establishing agricultural extension systems were not achieved,” and “reforms to revitalize agricultural financing and to reduce government interventions in the state emergency fodder reserve failed.” (pg. 1 Executive Summary) The entire whet farming support program, which appears to be the main focus of spending failed totally. Hidden in the analysis is grudging admission that no prior research was ever conducted by the ADB on the difficulties of sustaining wheat growing in the hostile Mongol environment, as wrongly developed in the socialist era. What little is said about the nomadic livestock portion of the Agricultural Project is very disheartening. Only 3 of the 31 policy measures were related to the herders, and no Strategy for development was ever adopted by the Mongolian Government. To exemplify the lack of substance and honesty in the ADB Audit Report, there is the designation of the one extensive livestock-related policy measure as being “partly accomplished.” However, all that resulted was the formulation of an action plan calling for $7.8 million for short-term (1998-1999) and $15.5 million for medium-term (2000-2002) measures. This action plan was not adopted by the Mongol Government, yet the Audit Report deemed this measure “partly successful”! (pg. 6) Conclusion I have purposefully labeled the inconsistencies
within the foreign donor and foreign NGO programs as challenges
not problems. It is exciting to find new ideas for rural development,
such as the yak dairy concept of The Mountain Institute of Washington,
DC, alternative sealant products being used for rural road development,
micro-enterprises for agriculture in gers, and rough-terrain small
mobile slaughterhouses from ATL of England/Sweden, planned for Mongolia.
All of the institutions including the Mongolian Government working
on development issues want to promote appropriate policies to enhance
the life of Mongolians. To successfully do this, we need to better
inform ourselves about actual rural conditions and be open to creative
solutions which may in fact challenge our preconceived ideas. It
is not acceptable to hide behind code words for development to try
to destroy Mongolia’s nomadic economy and life. This does
not mean this sector of the population is to live in perpetual poverty
or illiteracy. Rather, it means that all the policymakers and foreign
donor and NGO organizations must accept the sustainability of Mongolia’s
nomadic economy in order to assist it to become more successful
and profitable, not with the aim to destroy it.
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