Context

Rural areas of Mongolia, a country with an extreme continental climate, face social and
environmental challenges exacerbated by climate change, such as overgrazing and
rangeland degradation, desertification, and difficulties to locally produce vegetables,
generating nutritional deficiencies affecting in particular children and women.

Khentii and Arkhangai provinces have a rural population of 140,000 people, 80% of whom derive their livelihood from the agricultural sector that is to a large extent underdeveloped.

In transition towards a free market, herders and small-scale Mongolian farmers have
difficulties to adjust their productive systems to create value, preserve their natural
resources and altogether secure their livelihoods and resilience to climate change.

Within this patriarchal agro-pastoral rurality, women’s place and role remain fragile
and lacks mainstreaming and mentoring schemes. Women suffer from limited access
to natural resources, financial services, and property.

They are mainly involved in informal and unpaid family work schemes and household tasks, and are not involved in community and collective decision-making. Like other members of the population, women are concerned by issues of transition and resilience, and wish to participate in sustainable local development.

Objectives and solutions

To meet these challenges, and based on their field experience, the MONES, Geres and
AVSF consortium is working for an inclusive and sustainable rural economic development
following two major levers:

• Support agricultural activities with high added value: sustainable cashmere and
  local vegetable production, through the dissemination of energy-efficient and
  environmentally friendly solutions, and promotion of sustainable natural resources
  management and production practices.
• Empower women as key drivers of change in local development by promoting their role
  to work on par with men and local authorities in their productive activities and in the
  policy making process in Mongolia. In turn, including men into strong advocates and
  supporters of women’s role in rural economic development.

Technical partners

• AVSF – Agronomes et Vétérinaires Sans Frontières: they have been supporting Mongolian herders since 2004.
• MONES – Mongolian Women’s Fund: they are a Mongolian organization that promotes women’s empowerment.
  

Our actions in video

Our actions in Khentii in pictures