Mongolia Appeal No. 01.69/2004

The International Federation's mission is to improve the lives of vulnerable people by mobilising the power of humanity. The Federation is the world's largest humanitarian organisation, and its millions of volunteers are active in over 180 countries. All international assistance to support vulnerable communities seeks to adhere to the Code of Conduct and the Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response, according to the SPHERE Project.
This document reflects a range of programmes and activities to be implemented in 2004, and the related funding requirements. These are based upon the broader, multi-year framework of the Federation's Project Planning Process (PPP). The PPP products can be requested through the respective regional department. For further information concerning programmes or operations in this or other countries or regions, please also access the Federation website at http://www.ifrc.org

National Context

Landlocked between China and Russia , Mongolia, is comprised of 21 aimags (provinces) and one municipality. Mongolia traditionally experiences exceptionally harsh winter conditions. Over the past four years, however, conditions have been worse than usual due to the onset of dzuds. A dzud occurs when abnormally dry summers with minimal precipitation cause the extensive Mongolian grasslands to be reduced to near desert conditions offering few opportunities for forage for livestock during winter months. The loss of livestock because of dzuds in a country that has traditionally relied on herding has left more than ten thousand herding families with nothing after having lost their livestock and livelihood. An estimated eight million head of livestock were killed because of dzud conditions over the last four years. Herder families, many of whom had only recently returned to herding after losing their jobs in urban factories, have returned to the suburbs of Ulaanbaatar and urban areas of soum (districts) and aimag centres in abject poverty. In Mongolia, those people living in the urban areas are often more vulnerable to the effects of natural disasters then those living in the rural areas.

Positive developments resulting from Mongolia's transition since the early 1990s into a market economy have been accompanied by serious economic hardship for many of Mongolia's citizens, most notably extensive unemployment and attendant poverty. For those people who have lost their jobs there are few opportunities to retrain for other vocations. Many families are turning to a traditional pastoral lifestyle and competition for good grazing land amongst herder families with large numbers of livestock has become more intense.

Economic hardship is compounded by natural phenomena which adversely affect many families both in rural and urban communities. These include steppe and forest fire, flash flooding, landslip and rock fall, as well as a variety of communicable diseases such as bubonic plague, brucellosis, and foot and mouth disease, all of which are communicable to humans and animals. These common place problems have contributed to a severe decline in the living conditions of many herder families who may have already lost significant numbers of livestock through dzud.

Red Cross and Red Crescent Priorities

National Society Strategy and Programme Priorities

Since Mongolia's independence in 1990, the Mongolian Red Cross Society (MRCS) like many of the nation's institutions has undergone significant changes. The MRCS has used this period to reflect upon its needs, and aims to mobilise volunteers and develop effective and sustainable cooperation with government and non-government organisations working in the humanitarian field.

Over the past year, the MRCS has undertaken a considerable amount of work to map out its future strategy. One important part of this process has been the establishment of five working groups from within the organisation which were tasked with suggesting recommendations to help build the strategy. These working groups carried out a review of all available documentation. This included a number of studies sponsored by the Federation, including a large-scale vulnerability capacity assessment (VCA) carried out in the spring and summer of 2002 and an organisational review that was completed in early 2003. Much of this work was undertaken together with a consultant from the Academy of Management in Ulaanbaatar.

The result of these efforts has enabled the MRCS to develop its own version of Strategy 2010. The strategy stresses the need for the MRCS to focus on the society's core activities over the next ten years. The strategy was approved by the General Assembly of the MRCS and was further ratified by the fourth national conference of the MRCS held in Gobi-Altai in August 2003. Participants at this forum included representatives of the corps of MRCS volunteers, MRCS headquarters staff, chairmen of mid and primary level MRCS branches, and members of the managing board of the MRCS.

MRCS priorities for 2004 will focus on implementation of the recommendations of the change process, and five core areas namely; resource development both human and financial, disaster preparedness, health & care, capacity building of the branches, public image and cooperation. A key issue for MRCS is to improve its capacity building both at national and local level. The development of staff and volunteers will be a primary focal point for MRCS to become a well-functioning national society. Funding of mid-level MRCS branches has also been identified as another primary issue Due to limited income generation and fundraising activities, branches are not able to maintain financial solvency The MRCS is seeking suitable income generation modalities for branches to adopt as a way to reach financial solvency and there have been proposals made to allow branches to run small enterprises in order to sustain branch activities These priorities were included in the recommendations of the review team which visited Mongolia in the autumn of 2002, and in other documents. It is further hoped to develop greater cooperation with government organisations, non-government organisations, donors, and trading companies.

Priorities for Movement Support

Since 1999, the Federation has mainly focused on the MRCS's emergency relief activities. More recently however, the Federation's support has gradually developed from emergency relief to an integrated longer term development programme comprising long-term health and care, disaster preparedness, humanitarian values and organisational development programmes.

The priority for Movement support will be to assist the MRCS to move its strategy forward over the next three years. Given the vulnerability potential as well as the size of the country, the challenges are enormous. Although the MRCS is large in terms of geographical coverage and numbers of volunteers, it is lacking in capacity. A top priority is therefore to assist the MRCS to strengthen the primary and secondary level MRCS branches and build up capacities at national headquarters and -- in the long term -- within the entire network of aimag and soum branches, thus developing the society into a strong partner at home and aboard.

The Federation's aims are:

• to assist in building the management capacity and enhance the self-reliance of the MRCS, with expected results of improved management structures and systems, better trained and more skilled staff, better developed branches, improved financial management and expanded income generation; and,

• to support the MRCS in the development of programmes that are more responsive and focused on the needs of the most vulnerable, with the expected results of increased capacity, programmes designed to meet the needs of the most vulnerable, improvement in quality of monitoring and evaluation, and, further development of the organisational development, health and care and disaster management programmes.

Support and assistance for the MRCS will be provided by the Federation's country delegation, backed up by the regional delegation in Beijing and the regional service centre in Kuala Lumpur. Expertise from the Secretariat in Geneva will be requested when appropriate. Several PNS have also indicated their interest to support MRCS's development activities. These include the Australian, British, Finnish, German, Japanese, Netherlands, Norwegian and South Korean Red Cross. The details and modalities of their engagement in 2004 are at different levels of development, and the Federation will keep in close touch with these and other interested potential donors in order to ensure effective and coordinated support to MRCS. The ICRC continues to support the humanitarian values programme, in particular the promotion of international humanitarian law, both through funding and regular visits by the head of the ICRC regional delegation and its dissemination delegate. The relationship between the MRCS, the Federation and ICRC is very cordial.

(pdf* format - 112 KB)