Partnership for Social Accountability in Mongolia

Democracy Education Center (DEMO)

Aprt.#1, Baga Toiruu 44, Sukhbaatar District, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

This volume is a product of the researchers of the Mapping Social Accountability in Mongolia. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect the views of the Partnership for Social Accountability and ANSA-EAP. Partnership for Social Accountability of Mongolia or ANSA-EAP does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work.

This study report may be copied and used for research, educational, academician or non-profit purposes without Partnership for Social Accountability in Mongolia permission. However, this material should be cited as the source of information as appropriate.

For more information:

Mapping study research team

Independent Research Institute of Mongolia (IRIM)

301, ‘Internom’ bldg, Prime Minister Amar’s street, Suhkbaatar district, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

www.irim.mn, telephone +976-70117101

Mapping study team

Team Leader:

ARIUNTUNGALAG Munkhtuvshin

Executive Director, Independent Research Institute of Mongolia

Researchers:

BAYARTSETSEG

MA, Researcher of Center for Social Responsibilities,

Lecturer, Department of Politics and Sociology, Mongolian State University of Education

ODGEREL Tserendorj

Director of “Infratest” Research and development center

Lecturer, Department of Politics and Sociology, Mongolian State University of Education

ODONCHIMEG Tsevegmid

Researcher of Independent Research Institute of Mongolia

MOILTMAA Sarantuya

Researcher of Independent Research Institute of Mongolia

SARANGEREL Lhamsuren

MA, “Infratest” Research and development center,

Lecturer, Department of Politics and Sociology, Mongolian State University of Education

TUMENDELGER Sengedorj

PhD, Director of Center for Social Responsibilities,

Lecturer, Department of Politics and Sociology, Mongolian State University of Education

Advisor

BOLD Tsevegdorj

MA, Lecturer, Sociology and Social work department, National University of Mongolia

Translator

GANKHUYAG Demid

CONTETS

CONTETS 3

PREFACE 4

ABBREVIATIONS 5

eXECUTIVE SUMMARY 6

LIST OF FIGURES 9

Chapter I. 10

Introduction 10

Chapter II. 17

Mapping of Social accountability in Mongolia 17

2.1 Government Responsiveness 17

2.2.1 Overview 17

2.1.2 Research findings 18

2.1.3 Conclusion and Recommendations 29

2.2 Organized and capable citizen groups 30

2.2.1 Overview 30

2.2.2 Research findings 30

2.2.3 Conclusion and recommendations 48

2.3 Access to information 52

2.3.1 Overview 52

2.3.2 Research findings 52

2.3.3 Conclusions and recommendations 67

2.4 Social and cultural appropriateness 71

2.4.1 Overview 71

2.4.2 Research findings 73

2.4.3 Conclusions and recommendations 76

Chapter III. 79

SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY: MAPPING CITIZEN GROUPS AND CITIZEN INITIATIVES 79

GOVERNMENT BEST CHAMPIONS 86

STAKEHOLDER'S MAPPING…………………………… …………………………….88

References/Bibliography 114

PREFACE

Partnership for Social Accountability in Mongolia (PSAM), Civil society network, was founded in November 2009 with a purpose to promote and exchange social accountability (SA) knowledge and experiences among the Mongolian civil society by sharing extended information and their building capacity in a partnership with Affiliated Network for Social Accountability in East Asia and the Pacific (ANSA-EAP). After several meetings, eight Civil Society Organizations (CSO) which are working in the social accountability area in Mongolia and one initiative government official joined together in its first meeting and established a conveners group of the network ‘Partnership for Social Accountability in Mongolia’.

In order to set up and plan our work specifically to promote social accountability initiative success in Mongolia, we agreed to conduct a mapping study of the SA situation in Mongolia first. The study, designed to assess the present situation of social accountability in Mongolia and to identify the pressing issues and potential solutions, was mainly centered on the civil society organizations (working in the area of SA), the key subject for supporting and demanding the SA, and it was carried out by mainly using the qualitative survey method. A phone survey was conducted as well in order to validate effective CSOs working in a field of SA in Mongolia.

In this study we used four pillars of SA which were developed by the research team of ANSA-EAP in order to create a clearer picture of the SA situation in Mongolia. The four pillars are as follows: (a) ‘Government responsiveness’, which considers and assesses enabling environment of the civil society and government engagement (b) ‘Organized and Capable citizens group’, which assesses civil society’s capacity to organize SA activities in a field (c) ‘Access to information’, which considers availability and openness of channels that government and its agencies are using when sharing information with the citizens and other related stakeholders (d)’Social and Cultural appropriateness’ which refers to the basic social and political environment that supporting or eliminating SA works in a country.

The study was conducted by three research organizations of conveners group in PSAM between May and August of 2010. The Center for Social Responsibility (CSR) worked on the ‘Government responsiveness’ section, ‘Infratest’ Research and Training Institute worked on the ‘Organized and capable citizens group’ section, Independent Research Institute of Mongolia (IRIM) worked on the ‘Access to information’ and ‘Social and cultural appropriateness’ sections.

We gratefully acknowledge the contribution of the research team of ANSA-EAP, and especially we would like to thank Angelita Gregorio-Medel, Project Director of ANSA-EAP, Adelfo V. Briones, Research and Knowledge Management Coordinator of ANSA-EAP and Cody S. Rabe, Research Officer of ANSA-EAP and others. Also we extend our special gratitude to the members of conveners group of PSAM who contributed by their valuable comments and recommendations. Finally, we would like to thank all participants from civil society organizations, government agencies, experts from donor organizations and others. Without your collaboration and contributions, this study would not have been possible.

ABBREVIATIONS

ANSA-EAP- Affiliated Network for Social Accountability in East Asia and the Pacific

CSO- Civil Society Organization

CSR- Center for Social Responsibility

CSC-Civil Society Council

GO-Government organization

GDP-Gross Domestic Product

DEMO-Democratic Education Center

MPRP-Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party

NGO-Non-Governmental Organization

OSF-Open Society Forum

IRIM-Independent Research Institute of Mongolia

SA-Social Accountability

PSAM- Partnership for Social Accountability in Mongolia

PWYPE- Publish What You Pay and Earn Coalition

WB-World Bank

eXECUTIVE SUMMARY

A Poverty Measurement Survey carried out in 2005-2009 indicated that 36.1% of Mongolia’s populations[1] live below the poverty line, with a serious shortage of food and non-food item supply (National Statistics Office, 2005). Conversely, per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for 2005-2009 increased 2.11 times[2]. This situation raises the question why such increase in GDP had brought no positive impact in poverty alleviation. This is especially to be questioned as the mining sector has continued to develop, with the recent commencement of investment agreements in strategically important large-scale mineral deposits. With the mining sector boom, government revenue will probably increase, demanding oversight and monitoring from civil society on expenditure. This has resulted in a need for the formation of social accountability mechanisms to reduce poverty, to fight corruption and to ensure sustainable development.

The basis for social accountability is considered to be monitoring by, and participation from citizens and civil society in, the operation of government. This should include civil society activity such as citizen engagement in policy-making, participatory budgeting, government expenditure monitoring, citizen monitoring of social service delivery, citizen consultative action, lobbying and advocacy. All of these civil society activities aim to ensure transparency in government policy-making and implementation, creation of responsive action,[3] improvement of governance and its effectiveness, empowerment of citizens, as well as strengthening of government stability and political legitimacy by support from accountable and participatory institutions[4].Civil society, international and private organizations have raised issues of good governance, citizen engagement, budget transparency, social accountability and social auditing for the last few years, with some positive initial action and outcomes in advocacy into government policy and strengthening of institutional capacity.

This study aims to identify social accountability initiatives that involve citizens and citizens groups in strengthening government accountability and covered the areas of capacity of citizens and citizens groups in supporting social accountability initiatives and their impact, current situations of social institutions, implementations and regulations, required needs and capacity demand for government and non-government organizations to develop good governance and proper social accountability mechanism in Mongolia. Regarding to this purpose some kind of researches such as legal and policy analyzes, documents review, in-depth interviews, phone survey and web analyzes was conducted by research team.

Considering social accountability situation in Mongolia, any affairs related to establishing citizens groups and getting registered as the legal body is regulated by Law in NGOs, General Law on State Registration and Law on State Registration of Legal Entities and there is no direct compression or constraints in a process of requesting to register by legal body for the NGOs. Even though the registration office requires additional documents (not stated in law) or rejects because the applicants failed in filling out forms properly and these are all administrative and procedural constraints in registering the NGOs. Moreover, transaction cost to register is higher for the local NGOs because they demanded to come by themselves to capital city, Ulaanbaatar in order to become legally accepted NGO.

Nowadays, civil society partnership with government is influencing in a positive way to social accountability mechanism in Mongolia. With initiative from Mongolian civil society organizations, Mongolian Civil Society Council (CSC) was established in 1 February which embodied around 300 NGOs, citizens’ movement, labor union and several nonprofit organizations. In 26 March, 2008, the council and Government of Mongolia signed the “Cooperative Agreement”, which reflected to implement particular services by contracting with NGOs, to make available enabling economical and legal environment for the civil society the joint actions monitoring the implementation of legislation, running monitoring on budget expenditure, cooperate on developing draft laws and policy documents, exchange information and support each other. Though there are some good initiatives like outsourcing the NGOs and inviting the civil society representatives for the working groups and councils, but it is uncertain how to select the NGOs and what criteria would be required from NGOs and how they making selection is still unclear.

As of today, 7300 NGOs officially registered at the Ministry of Justice and Home Affairs. Of all NGOs that were covered with this survey, more than 80% work in the area of environment, mining, budget transparency, access to information, human rights and protecting the interests of population groups; all classified as the NGOs serving for the society.

One of the good efforts of the NGOs is that citizens’ groups are joining into networks in order to strengthen their efforts to mainstream the social accountability in recent years. 72,7% of the surveyed NGOs was joined to a civil society network in somehow. There are several networks that are working as effectively, for examples Citizens’ Oversight on Budget Coalition that working a area of budget transparency which embodied more than 30 NGOs, CSC of Mongolian NGOs which embodied about 300 NGOs, Coalition of Environment NGOs which embodied about 600 NGOs in nationally, Publish What you Pay and Earn coalition (PWYPE) which is working in area of extractive industry. In addition to it, the “Civil Hall” was opened at the President of Mongolia with initiative from the OSF (OSF) designed for collecting inputs from the citizens and other stakeholders for laws, rules and regulations through hearings, discussions and debates. The Civil Hall organized several open discussions on the Budget Law with participation of citizens’, civil society organizations and government organizations and the presentation on the conceptual framework of the law was extensively discussed.

Main tools that CSOs are use in their work to advocate or claim for being accountable from the government or its’ agencies are to conduct monitoring in a budget expenditure, public service delivery process and procurement process. In addition to this they organize promotion or some kind of campaign such as delivering recommendations, claim paper or requests by using the monitoring or research results. Also they are mobilizing effectively mass media organizations as well in order to disseminate related information to the citizens and other stakeholders.

The key constraint identified as the study to the citizens groups for effective operation is the lack of financial resources. The existing regulation over taxation and social insurance payments of NGOs do not bring positive impacts on the NGOs financial capability. Lack of funding likely makes the NGOs dependent on the funding agency including the government even leading to the case that final outcome of any activity is made favorable to the funder, which is a concern from this survey. Almost half of the NGOs take fund from the international donor organizations when they conduct any activity in a area of social accountability.

Furthermore, lack of human resource is identified as one of the major difficulties for the NGOs. Very few number of NGOs whose human resource and technical capacity is sufficient to conduct social accountability initiatives for the long term, or capacity to build constructive engagement between government or its’ agencies are recognized and accepted by the government.

Accessing to information regarding to the activities of public organizations is limited. At a glance, the legal and ethical environment for government agency and officers to disclose information make it open and transparent looks like well-created, but in reality the availability of information is still not sufficient. Citizens encounter difficulties to access to information from the government agencies through government officials as well as official websites.

Though the formal websites are the main tools for government to disseminate information to citizens and other stakeholders, but the content, availability of information and effectiveness is still very weak no meeting the demand for information.

To conclude the entire process of disseminating/receiving information from the government organization, it is been found to be time consuming, with many steps, weak linkage in-between the government officers and organizations and the legal; provisions regulating this procedure is not enforced well.

Lack of historic experiences and practices of ensuring the participation of citizens and civil society in the government decision-making causes delays to both government officers and citizens to accept the citizens’ oversight on the government actions affecting negatively on the supportive attitudes.

LIST OF TABLES