Participation

The consultation was attended by partners from ILO, UNICEF, World Bank, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Social Welfare and Labour, the teachers’ trade union, other employers and workers organisations and various NGOs.

Background on crisis impact in Mongolia

The Mongolian economy has been seriously affected by the global financial crisis. The price of copper, the country’s main export commodity, declined significantly and the dependence on mining revenues has caused budget shocks. There has also been declining demand for other products, eg cashmere.  Revenues had fallen by almost one third in the first half of 2009 compared to the same period in 2008. It was expected that for 2009 the government would face a fiscal deficit in excess of 7% of GDP.

Is there information suggesting the crisis is reducing the numbers enrolling in or attending school?

Whilst there was no information available with hard data on the impact on education, the representative of the Ministry of Education at the consultation stated that children in secondary grades were missing classes in order to supplement family income.  The Ministry of Education also reported that an ADB assessment indicated 40% of families could not afford to buy school supplies for their children, including textbooks.

In April 2009 the Ministry of Social Welfare and Labour conducted a nationwide survey of 33,000 adult respondents in order to study the impact of social assistance programmes, and the survey also included a section on the impact of financial crises on families.   Although the study did not explore school dropout and child labour, 74% of the respondents indicated an impact of economic crises on their livelihoods.

The Mongolian Teachers Trade Union said that maintenance expenditure in schools had been reduced substantially.  In some instances the funding gap was being met by collecting money from students.  There had also been cuts in teacher training and purchase of books for teachers. 

Recently UNICEF started dialogue with Ministries of education, social welfare and justice to come up with monitoring indicators on the impact of crises on children and women.  It proposes to use indicators that can be produced by data from the current system in education, health, and welfare sectors.  This could also include monitoring of selected sites every week (monitoring enrollment/attendance/or coverage and funding of school dormitories, care centres etc).
 
Has the crisis had, or will it have, a negative impact on the national education budget

In response to the evolving financial and economic crisis, the Government has formulated a crisis response program that was presented to development partners earlier in 2009. The Government underscored the urgency of securing emergency financing to stabilize the impact of the financial crisis and offset the adverse fiscal and balance-of-payments dimensions of the crisis. The Government has indicated that its priority is to protect the poor during this period and has proposed a dual strategy of (i) ensuring macroeconomic and financial stability (i.e., cross-cutting support to the poor); and (ii) reforming and improving the targeting of welfare programs, and ensuring the effectiveness of social services delivery and effectiveness of social services outlays. The strategy of the Government is to reach vulnerable groups and maintain the delivery of essential social services in collaboration with development partners. The Government has reached an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on an 18-months standby operation. The Government received firm pledges amounting to $160 million from the World Bank, ADB, and Japan.

Child labour

The information that there could be an increase in the numbers of children working remains mainly anecdotal.  ILO-IPEC has for the past four years been operating a project to support implementation of a National Action Plan to eliminate child labour.  Through its field level work and operations it has received informal reports and information on increasing vulnerability to child labour.

Is there a need to collect data on the impact on vulnerable households with children

The general view at the Consultation meting was that there is a need to collect new data on the impact of the crisis, although to some extent measures are already in place or are being developed.  These include

• An ADB study on education needs of families and schools during economic crises (which served the basis of the ADB’s response project) may provide additional data: 
• The dialogue which UNICEF  has initiated with a number of Ministries could provide additional data
• UNICEF and UNDP are also cooperating on a review on the impact of the crisis considering the impact on the economy, employment, poverty, education, health, social safety nets, social insurance and government mitigation policies.
• The MoSWL survey on the impact of crises on population is planned to be conducted quarterly.   The MOSWL poverty mapping exercise is designed to establish a database of poor households that will allow for better targeting of social welfare schemes. This could also provide an avenue to help ensure that education interventions reach the hardest to reach children.

New government measures helping to keep children in school

The government has taken various steps to mitigate the impact of both the food price crisis and economic crisis on vulnerable households.

In April 2008, as a response to the food price crisis, the government adopted an “Action plan to protect people from high inflation”, which included the design and implementation of a special programme for vulnerable population groups affected by increased food prices.  Consequently, the government adopted in late September 2008 the sub-programme “Provision of food and nutritional support to selected groups of vulnerable population” for the duration of 3 years.  The sub-programme is funded by the government (11.3 bln tugrugs) and the ADB  (13 bln tugrugs).  The long-term goal of the programme is to build capacity and mechanisms for preventing and responding to the impact of escalated food prices on the poor.

In March 2009, the government requested donor support to fill the gaps in social programmes.  To plug a fiscal gap of USD 140 million  in 2009 and USD 64 million in 2010, ADB, World Bank and JICA have pledged a total of USD 160 million. 

On 12 August 2009, the Government approved the loan of USD 17 million  from ADB under a “Grant Agreement between the Government of Mongolia and the ADB “Provision of education services to the poor during economic crises” with a total cost of USD 26.4 million (17.0 million from ADB and 9.4 million from the government).

The Project will have three outputs to ensure: (i) provision of kindergarten meals to children ages 2-6 (ii) targeted provision of textbooks for secondary school students from poor families, and (iii) capacity building.

Output 1: Kindergarten Feeding Program. The Project will support the kindergarten feeding program which will benefit an estimated 250,000 children ages 2-6 by providing complementary feeding. The Project will also support the Government in developing an appropriate targeting strategy for the provision of kindergarten meals in the medium-term.

Output 2: Targeted Textbook Provision for Poor Students. The Project will support targeted provision of textbooks in priority subjects to secondary school students from poor households. About 100,000 students from low income families will benefit from receiving free textbooks. The Project will review the current targeting of textbooks to 20% of students deemed poor, including how targeting decisions are made and verified and the reasons for the leakage.

Output 3: Capacity Building. Capacity building under the Project will include (i) capacity development for targeting of education programs; (ii) strengthening the efficiency of budgeting and financial management in education, and (iii) monitoring and evaluation. The Project will support the Government in evaluating budgeting and financial management in the education sector and preparing a comprehensive policy matrix for strengthening the efficiency of budgeting and financial management given the impact of the financial crisis on the government budget and outlays for the education sector, and Mongolia's movement towards a SWAp in education.

Other relevant information and next steps

The UN Country Team in Mongolia is seeking to coordinate joint monitoring efforts and agencies were requested in a letter of August 11 to collect hard data on the impact of crises.