Poverty has remained one of Mongolia’s most difficult challenges throughout the past two decades. Despite many positive gains in Mongolia’s development, poverty has remained persistent, affecting one-third of the nation’s population.
The World Bank has ranked Mongolia a Lower Middle-Income Country based on growing revenues from mining sector development. However, mining is not a labour-intensive sector and doesn’t provide sufficient jobs for the unemployed poor. Consequently, Mongolia is aware of the importance of diversifying its economy, creating more jobs and endorsing small and medium enterprise (SME) development. Indeed, the Government of Mongolia has identified that SME development is an effective strategic tool to promote job creation and poverty alleviation, and approved an SME law in 2007.
When it fine-tuned its Cooperation Strategy with Mongolia in 2010 in light of the country’s changing development trajectory, SDC in Mongolia highlighted “Income and Employment” as one of the two pillars of its main development framework.
Herding and pasture management are unsustainable and require sectoral transformation through a reduction in livestock numbers and the number of herder families. This leaves a vacuum for creating alternative employment opportunities for herders. However, most are unskilled and unsuited for the demands of the emerging labour market.
In response to this, SDC promotes vocational education and training (VET) and SME development, and has committed to supporting Mongolia with strong engagement in VET reform. A boom in the mining sector, and in such sectors as construction, demand a skilled labour force. SDC’s interventions are targeted at rural youth, primarily those in the western region of Mongolia, who are seeking meaningful and in-demand vocations. Switzerland's long experience in the field of vocational education means SDC has much to offer Mongolia.
Income and Employment is not a new domain for SDC in Mongolia. Since 2004 it has implemented a number of projects in this area aimed at bolstering the entrepreneurial skills of herders and improving and adding value to livestock products. SDC’s key achievement has been its successful intervention targeting the revitalization of Mongolia’s potato sector through the renewal of seed stock with high-quality varieties. So successful has this intervention been that Mongolia is now self-sufficient in domestic potato production. SDC is also a lead donor in the artisanal mining sector, which provides jobs and income for more than 100,000 unemployed Mongolians through informal labour.
SDC in Mongolia is active in creating more employment opportunities and generating income for the rural population through the following projects:
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