Many thanks for visiting USAID/Mongolia’s new website. Mongolia is a fascinating and beautiful country, and those of us who are privileged to work here are doing so at a vitally important time in its history. I believe that our small, highly-focused program, in collaboration with the fine work of our outstanding partners, is helping to make a real difference in the lives of the Mongolian people.

The projects we fund are working on some of the most pressing issues facing Mongolia today – policy reform, development of the private sector, privatization, reform of the judicial sector, and strengthening this country’s nascent democracy. With funds from central and regional sources, we are also engaged in protecting biodiversity, in expanding the use of information and communications technology, and in helping Mongolia take steps to protect itself from the scourge of HIV-AIDS.

I think our portfolio is exciting, creative, and working in exactly the areas in which USAID is best-placed to assist Mongolia. As we develop and expand this website over the coming months, we hope to be able to share with you some of the reasons why this is indeed one of the best little USAID programs in the world. I welcome your suggestions for additions to these pages, and hope that you will visit us often.

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.    

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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. 

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posted: 4/6/2009

As 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.

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posted: 4/5/2009

On 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.

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