Promoting Effectiveness of Development Cooperation in Mongolia (January 2015–March 2017)

The Mongolian economy experienced more than a decade of rapid transformation and growth, mostly propelled by the discovery of large mineral deposits and the development of the mining industry. As Mongolia moved towards becoming an upper middle-income country, the relative size and concessionality of official development assistance to the country declined. Thus, it became increasingly important for the Mongolian government to align foreign aid with the country’s priorities to maximize its effectiveness. However, the government’s efforts to manage its official development assistance were encumbered by repeated government restructuring, which disabled key coordination mechanisms between the Mongolian government and the development partners.

In order to improve the alignment of aid with the government’s development priorities and objectives, IC Net provided technical assistance to the Mongolian government to improve its ability to effectively plan and manage development assistance-supported projects. Key initiatives include a comprehensive assessment of Mongolia’s aid management system benchmarked against international best practices and the formulation of a national development assistance policy that aligned aid to the country’s public investment and technical assistance needs. IC Net also established a coordination mechanism between the government and development partners to create regular government-led coordination meetings at the national and sectoral levels. In addition to policy and system level improvements to aid management, IC Net organized training seminars and workshops for key government officials to improve their ability to manage and effectively use development assistance.