PM U.Khurelsukh meets with the representatives of the MCC www.montsame.mn

Official visit of Mongolian Prime Minister U.Khurelsukh to the USA is continuing. PM U.Khurelsukh held a meeting with the representatives of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and got familiarized with the project plan on improving water supply of Ulaanbaatar city. Senior Director and Practice Lead in the Water and Sanitation Division of the Department at the MCC Kumar Ranganathan said that water supply issue of Ulaanbaatar city has reached an alarming level. If citizens of Ulaanbaatar city continue to use underground and surface water without changing their consumption attitude, the city will run out of water in less than 20 years. Moreover, stream of Tuul River, the main source of drinking water is expected to diminish several times. Therefore, the MCC decided to render non-refundable financial support worth USD 350 million to the implementation of comprehensive project on improving water supply of Ulaanbaatar city within five years’ period. Mr Kumar Ranganathan expressed his hope that the implementation of the project will bring multilateral positive changes to Mongolian society and economy. The project will be realized in three phases between 2019 and 2023. In the frames of the project, equipment to increase underground water reserve and filter the water will be installed at 50 locations around the city. Moreover, water recycling facility will be built with the purpose of using grey water in heating power plants of the city. Thus, heating power plant will be able to use 15 million cubic meters of grey water in its consumption per year. Within the project, legal environment regarding water supply will be improved as well. It is also estimated that drinking water reservoir will be increased by 70 million cubic meters after installing water purifying technology and consumption system in water wells of ger districts.

PM meets representatives of key international organizations www.zgm.mn

Prime Minister of Mongolia Khurelsukh Ukhnaa, during his visit to the United States of America, met with the Heads of the World Bank Group, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and representatives of Millennium Challenge Corporation. Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group, expressed his satisfaction towards economic recovery of Mongolia following the joint programs and policy measures. Prime Minister Khurelsukh noted that the Government of Mongolia is giving special importance in expanding the first phase of Economic Management Program and efficiently implementing its second phase. He then announced to focus on intensifying joint projects, stabilizing the economy and increasing accessibility.

IMF WARNS TO INCREASE FX RESERVE

On the same day, the PM Khurelsukh discussed the results and further actions of Extended Fund Facility (EFF) program with Christine Lagarde, the Managing Director and Chairwoman of the IMF. Ms. Lagarde expressed contentment towards successful implementation of the program thanks to Mongolia’s strong commitment to the program, fiscal stability, and significant progress on reducing debts and upgrading credit ratings, highlighting that the implementation of the EFF remains satisfactory with key targets met. Thanks to the program, Mongolia’s economy grew 6.3 percent in the first half of 2018 from 1.2 percent in 2016 and the IMF expects 8 percent growth in 2018. However, Ms. Lagarde warned that Mongolia remains vulnerable to external and internal shocks and signified the necessity to create favorable environment for investment, reduce fiscal deficit and further increasing FX reserve, and advised Mongolia to outline preparatory actions for potential shock.

MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE CORPORATION ADDRESSES WATER SUPPLY IN UB

On the sideline meeting with the delegation of Millenium Challenge Corporation, the Prime Minister had an au fait with the Millennium Challenge Corporation's plan on improving water supply in Ulaanbaatar city. According to Kumar Ranganathan, Practice Lead and Senior Director for Water and Sanitation nfrastructure at the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the water supply in Ulaanbaatar city has reached a level of concern. Ulaanbaatar city has less than 20 years of water supply with the current methodology for surface and deep water consumption. The runoff of Tuul river, the key source of drinking water in Ulaanbaatar, is in danger of diminishing several times than the normal size. Therefore, the Millennium Challenge Corporation settled USD 350 million in non-refundable aid for a project on a 5-year comprehensive solution to water supply issues. "We hope the implementation of this project will have multiple positive impact on Mongolia’s socio-economic situation," remarked Mr. Kumar Ranganathan. The project will be implemented in three phases between 2019 and 2023, increasing and cleansing deep water reserve, as well as installing filters, in 50 locations. Within the frame, a water purifier will be established, which will also allow industries to use greywater. For instance, thermal power plants will have annual access to 15 million square meters of greywater. Purifying technology will be installed in ger district drinking water wells, which is estimated to save 70 million square meters of water reserve.

Mining Minister elected as a ruling party official www.news.mn

Mining Minister D.Sumiyabazar has been elected as secretary general of the capital city’s committee of the ruling Mongolian People’s Party (MPP) at a congress. D.Sumiyabazar won 50.4 percent of the votes from the 369 MPP party members, who attended the party’s congress on Friday and Saturday to discuss internal. His opponent S.Batbold lost by only three votes.

Mongolia to improve tax administration with ADB loan www.news.mn

The Board of Directors of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a loan of USD 25 million to help Mongolia improve its tax administration and public investment management using information and communication technology (ICT).

US University opens Mongolian language class www.news.mn

For the first time, University of Pennsylvania students can learn Mongolian and delve into a new culture.

ADB to support first distributed renewable energy system in Mongolia www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Board of Directors has approved a USD 40 million loan to develop a 41 megawatt (MW) distributed renewable energy system—a first-of-its-kind in Mongolia using a variety of renewable energy technologies to supply power and heating in the remote and less-developed western regions of the country.

The project will also be co-financed by USD 14.6 million grant from the Strategic Climate Fund (SCF) under the Scaling Up Renewable Energy Program in Low-Income Countries, one of the Climate Investment Funds designed to support scaled-up deployment of renewable energy solutions to increase energy access and economic opportunities, and a USD 6 million grant from the Japan Fund for the Joint Crediting Mechanism (JFJCM), which supports the adaptation of advanced low-carbon technologies in ADB-supported projects.

“A clean, reliable, and sustainable energy sector is needed to boost economic growth in western Mongolia while addressing the need to reduce carbon and air pollutant emissions,” said ADB Principal Energy Specialist for East Asia Mr. Shigeru Yamamura. “The 41 MW renewable energy system that the project will finance will not only make the energy sector less carbon intensive, but also help the country’s efforts in meeting its commitment under the Paris climate agreement to reduce carbon emissions by 14 percent by 2030.”

The Upscaling Renewable Energy Sector Project will help develop a 40.5 MW distributed renewable energy system using solar photovoltaic and wind powers with advanced battery storage technology and energy management systems to supply clean and reliable electricity to geographically scattered local towns in western Mongolia, which rely on high-cost and high-carbon-intensive electricity imports from neighboring countries. Meanwhile, the project will also showcase a 500-kilowatt thermal shallow-ground heat pump system, which will supply pollutant-free space heating in public buildings. This system could be scaled up in the future and, ultimately, help mitigate local air pollution during winter.

The distributed renewable energy system financed by the project will help connect more than 258,313 people in the project areas to clean and reliable electricity and heat supply, while a total of 87,968 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually will be avoided by 2023.

The project will also help enhance the ability of the local electricity utilities and related agencies to manage a stable electricity supply. In addition, it will help build a foundation for future private renewable energy investment in western Mongolia by supporting preparation of long-term renewable energy investment plan.

The total cost of the project is USD 66.22 million, with the Government of Mongolia contributing USD 5.62 million. It is expected to be completed by 2023.

The Government of Mongolia has been making efforts to increase renewable energy use since 2000. However, the share of renewable energy in Mongolia’s energy mix remains low at 12 percent. ADB’s assistance for this project will help the government meet its goals under its State Policy on Energy, 2015–2030, which aims to raise the share of renewable energy to 20 percent by 2023 and 30 percent by 2030.

Source: adb.org

ADB approves USD 40 million in loan for 41MW renewable energy system www.zgm.mn

The Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Board of Directors has approved a USD 40 million loan to develop a 41 megawatt (MW) distributed renewable energy system, a first-of-its-kind in Mongolia using a variety of renewable energy technologies to supply power and heating in the remote and less-developed western regions of the country. The project will also be cofinanced by a USD 14.6 million grant from the Strategic Climate Fund under the Scaling Up Renewable Energy Program in Low-Income Countries, one of the Climate Investment Funds designed to support scaled-up deployment of renewable energy solutions to increase energy access and economic opportunities, and a USD 6 million grant from the Japan Fund for the Joint Crediting Mechanism, which supports the adaptation of advanced low-carbon technologies in ADB-supported projects. “A clean, reliable, and sustainable energy sector is needed to boost economic growth in western Mongolia while addressing the need to reduce carbon and air pollutant emissions,” said ADB Principal Energy Specialist for East Asia Mr. Shigeru Yamamura. “The 41 MW renewable energy system that the project will finance will not only make the energy sector less carbon intensive, but also help the country’s efforts in meeting its commitment under the Paris climate agreement to reduce carbon emissions by 14 percent by 2030.”

Pollution pushes Mongolia's herders to reconsider city life www.theguardian.com

More than a decade ago, Darii Garam, 76, moved to Ulaanbaatar with her children so they could go to school and find work beyond herding animals in the countryside. Now, the pollution, set to worsen in the approaching winter, is getting to her.

“Even just going outside for a second, opening your door, your home fills with smoke, your clothes, everything smells like it,” she says moving around her ger, a spacious and neatly kept traditional Mongolian yurt, to make tea.

Darii lives on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar, an area known as the ger district or sometimes, affectionately, the “g district”, where rural migrants have collected over the last two decades. Here, gers and houses built out of wood and other scrap material creep up the hills that box in Ulaanbaatar. Every winter, as many as 220,000 households burn coal to stay warm. When families can’t afford coal they sometimes burn tyres and other scraps.

The hospitals are packed every winter, as thousands of children fall sick. Visibility is so bad that two people can be walking hand in hand and not be able to see each other. Air pollution, or “smoke” as the residents call it, often reaches several times that of Beijing or Delhi.

“I wanted more for my children but the air is prohibitive,” Darii says. “I’ve never seen air pollution like this before… The food, pollution, everything, is really bad in Ulaanbaatar.”

Mongolia’s rural residents have flooded the capital in search of a better life. Now, as pollution worsens, officials and residents are looking for ways to lure people back to the countryside.

Today, Ulaanbaatar, a city designed to accommodate about half a million people, holds three times this number – almost half of the country’s population of three million. Harsh winters have killed off millions of livestock, forcing rural herders to the capital for work.

In 2004, almost 70,000 people moved from rural areas to the city, equivalent to the population of an entire province. Since then as many as 45,000 have moved to the capital annually. Most collect in the ger district, an area officials say accounts for 80% of the city’s air pollution.

Under pressure, the government decided last year to ban migration, and recently extended the ban until 2020.

But high levels of pollution persist. About 15,000 people marched in Ulaanbaatar, last year protesting against the smog, in one of the country’s biggest demonstrations in years. In January, concentrations of PM2.5, breathable airborne particles, reached 3,320 micrograms per cubic meter, more than 133 times the level the World Health Organization deems safe.

“If we do not act, shall we all die burning whatever we want?” asked Batbayasgalan Jantsan, the city’s deputy mayor in charge of green development.

“What are the primary rights of human being?” he asks. “The right to life. The right to a healthy and safe environment. The state is obliged to provide that. The state has to protect its citizens from environmental pollution.”

Many say a migration ban alone is not enough to resolve the pollution problem. The real issue, experts and locals say, is the stark divide between the city and the countryside. Erdeneburen Ravjikh, the former state secretary of Mongolia’s ministry of construction and urban development, is on a mission to reverse this mass migration and repopulate the countryside.

Growing up in the steppe of southern Mongolia, Erdeneburen thought a lot about how to upgrade his rural hometown, Gurvansaikhan. There was no central heating, just coal-fired metal stoves. Getting water required a mile-long trek, and the bathrooms – wooden stalls outside – were brutal during the winter when temperatures fell to as low as -40C. “I used to freeze my arse off,” he says.

Most families lived in gers, and made their living by raising goats and selling cashmere. Many of the people Erdeneburen grew up with have left. He has also spent most of his adult life outside his hometown.

“In order to fight air pollution, we need to develop the rural areas, to make life good so people stay,” he says. “The main reason people move to Ulaanbaatar is the quality of life – having proper heating, proper toilets, good water supply.”

After four years of fundraising, designing, and construction, today, Gurvansaikhan looks more like a suburban neighbourhood dropped in the middle of the Gobi desert. Paved roads cut through the town, lined with solar-powered lamps. Residents share a wastewater treatment plant, a central heating system, and a water plant. City planners have even kept trees and shrubbery alive in the desert.

Officials at the city, provincial and national level are now working on a program to encourage citizens to migrate from Ulaanbaatar to the provinces. “Creating jobs in the countryside is important. This is what citizens want. They say, ‘I want to go back home, but I need a job’,” Batbayasgalan said.

Convincing people to move will take time. More than half of the country’s GDP is generated in Ulaanbaatar. Last year when unemployment in the city was 8.7%, in rural areas it was as high as 10.7%.

Erdenechimeg Sanlig came to the capital from the countryside six years ago with her children, following their oldest daughter to university. She goes home once a year and always finds that not much has changed.

“Having animals is difficult,” she says, sitting on a neatly made bed inside their ger, a traditional Mongolian yurt on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar or tent. A television plays the local news. Next to a microwave, a cabinet holds a cup of toothbrushes and a roll of toilet paper. A pink table decorated with images of Disney princesses, for her three granddaughters, sits on the far side of the tent.

“In the countryside our children would not find jobs. It’s better here to find jobs,” she says.

Still, increasingly more residents in the ger district are growing tired of life in the capital. Many complain about the food, the congestion, as well as the pollution. Before the ban, migration to the capital had already been falling since 2014. Last year, the number of people leaving Ulaanbaatar exceeded the amount moving in for the first time since the 1990s.

Zolzaya Amgalan, 32, and her husband Myanganbaatar Tsend, 41, have been here for the last three years with their son and daughter. When their son was a little more than a year old and struggling to walk, a doctor diagnosed him with rickets, and advised the family take a break in the countryside for a year.

“The difference was obvious. In the countryside the air, food, everything is good for the kids,” Zolzaya said. “If there were more development [in the countryside], of course we would move. Everyone would want to move.”

Bangladesh women entrepreneurs visit Mongolia www.daily-sun.com

A Bangladeshi women business delegation led by Women Entrepreneurs Association of Bangladesh president Nasreen Fatema Awal visited Mongolia to develop trade relation.

Winter greenhouses worth MNT 4.2 billion to be built with financing of Japan www.montsame.mn

Orkhon /MONTSAME/ Hokkaido Eco Village Promotion Project, Japan International Cooperation Agency and Japan’s Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Projects have initialed a Memorandum of Cooperation on constructing 15 winter greenhouses in Jargalant soum, Orkhon aimag.