Report from Mongolia – November 1, 2009

It has been quite a whirlwind trip-I spent last week in Guatemala where the temperature was in the high 70s, and then arrived in Mongolia three days ago where the temperature was minus 10 degrees. I’ve just facilitated a weekend retreat in a Ger village (Gers are portable felt homes, like yurts) outside of the capital city of Ulaanbaatar trying not to freeze. This is the first time in my life that I’ve hiked to the mountains to stay warm and out of the wind and cold. Oh well, everything is an adventure in life and it is the journey and not always the results that count.

The retreat was filled with amazing people who come from herder families that raise goats, sheep, horses, camels. They have lived their whole lives in Mongolia and it was fascinating talking with them about the issues and the extent of the poverty and social indicators. It was really educational and I began to read some material on this and found:

• 40% of the people live on less than $2.00 per day
• Over 37% are “officially” classified as living in poverty but a much larger percentage of people are simply not counted
• Over 50% of the population has severe addiction to alcohol (Vodka and beer)
• Literacy rates are among the highest in the world at over 95% but unemployment is extremely high.
• The gap between the small pockets of vast wealth and extreme poverty
• is thinning out the middle class

Life in the capital city, Ulaanbaatar, where about 40 percent of the population lives, seems to be a struggle for most people. In winter, the weather is very severe and the city is heavily polluted due to three Russian built coal-fired power plants. The Ger homes surrounding the central city area are all heated by coal and that contributes to the pollution, there are too many old cars that use leaded gas from Russia, and there is also a general lack of interest by the government to see cleaning up the city as a priority. The capital city sits in a bowl surrounded by mountains and in the winter air inversions trap the pollution in the city. In the short summertime (from May 15th- September 15th) the winds pick up so the air is cleaner.

Wages are very low and the cost of living seems very high. Many apartments could cost $500+ (USD) per month and it eats up a lot of the salaries, not counting the food and other necessary costs. The surprising thing to me as I came in from the airport was seeing all of the new building and construction-one engineer described this as “crane city”. I don’t see how the people will afford the costs of the new apartments and office space, but I am sure the developers think they will be occupied.

I am on my second visit here at the invitation of the Asia Foundation and George Soros’ Open Society Forum. On my first trip in March I established enough credibility to get invited back by these two foundations, both of which have a very strong and visible presence with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Tomorrow and Tuesday I am conducting a three-part training session for over 50 people on topics such as designing and developing campaign strategies, leadership development and resource development. These are three critical topics that all the NGOs need. On Wednesday, I am conducting an open training session at the Open Society Forum for more than 50 NGOs working on everything from disability rights, food and relief, and economic development. Then on Thursday and Friday I am concentrating on the human rights, women’s and open election organizations that are working to foster greater democratization in this country.

The environmental organizations, including the NGOs fighting to minimize the mining impact on this fragile environment, are among the strongest and most visible coalitions of NGOs in the country. These groups have already been quite successful in creating pressure on the Parliament to make sure that some polices are in place to minimize the destruction and damage that mining companies have done in countries such as Peru and Indonesia. I am coaching the leaders of organizations in an environmental coalition of government, mining and NGO stakeholders that is trying to minimize the negative impact of the mining interests and develop a responsible mining policy for the country that protects the land, water, animals, and people. Mongolia is so far north and the climate is so severe that farming is out of the question and cashmere and mining are the two largest sources of income for the government. Since I was here in March the government has approved an agreement with a Canadian company to mine in the Gobi Desert, which is in the southern most part of the country bordering on China. The Canadian mining company will have access to the largest untapped copper reserves in the world. In addition to copper, Mongolia has huge gold, coal, uranium and other metals, making mining a vital source of revenue for the government.

The NGO sector in Mongolia, as it is in all of the Eastern and Central European countries formerly under Soviet control, is very new and fragile.

The NGO sector has ballooned over the past decade, with thousands of these groups cropping up. However, probably only about 10 percent are true NGOs with a membership, constituency, and genuine mission. Most of them are “one person shows” by people who are taking advantage of an opportunity to get money for themselves through a government contract or grant, and they see forming an NGO as a way to get a tax advantage. Unfortunately, these “bad apples” have impacted the reputation of the “good apples” and the reputation of NGOs among government officials, university leaders and the general public is quite negative. The government really needs to tighten up on the criteria and evaluation of NGOs to assure that they meet higher standards.

In addition to the local indigenous organizations that I work with, there is a full range of international NGOs that provide relief and development services, as well as support organizations such as the United Nations. World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Asia Pacific Development Bank and others.

As is true with most of the developing countries of Africa, Latin and South America, and Asia, the growth of the NGO sector has been explosive, but very chaotic, unorganized and inefficient. There is a definite split between the large sophisticated, international NGO’s such as CARE, Save the Children, Project Mercy, UNIFEF, Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club and the local, indigenous NGOs. The larger organizations have a lot of credibility and prestige, pay significant salaries and therefore tend to dominate the NGO landscape. In fact, most of the resources that the grassroots and local NGOs use to operate come as a result of a contract with one of the international NGO to provide services. This has caused most of them to depend on these contracts, and to go from one contract to another-following the money rather than the mission that they were originally created to fulfill.

Most of the NGOs in developing countries have a way of operating that does not bode well for their future viability and success. In general, the NGO sectors are comprised of very small organizations that have a strong mission focus, but lack organizational and financial strength. Many of them have pervasive issues of internal trust among and between their members and constituencies that is a throw-back to their history and culture. They tend to be tactical rather than strategic, and focus almost exclusively on individual issues rather than building capacity. Most tend to have sprung up around a charismatic leader and the concept of developing layers of leadership is foreign to the prevailing culture. The overriding pattern in many countries (even though there are exceptions) is that there is little or no organized philanthropic history and the governments provide no resources to support the NGOs. These issues, coupled with a significant lack of support institutions (there are no Richard Male and Associates or similar organizations) that understand how to build and develop NGOs makes the viability of many organizations and movements questionable. People seem to find a way to start-up their NGOs and to grow them to a certain level, but the building blocks for sustainability are lacking. There is much to be done here, and I hope to return!

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