Over 8,000 elected representatives upskilled, local governance legal environment strengthened

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. “Strengthening Representative Bodies in Mongolia” (SRBM) project jointly implemented by the Secretariat of the State Great Hural, the United Nations Development Programme and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in 2017-2021 held its virtual closing meeting on June 28, 2021. Over 120 delegates from the national and sub-national parliaments, the government, civil society organizations and academia attended the online discussion and shared their experiences with the project. SRBM project provided technical assistance for revising the Law on Administrative and Territorial Units and Their Governance (LATUG) to respond to the needs expressed by the local governments for an improved legal environment. As a result, the responsibilities of each level of the local government, namely aimag, soum, bagh, the capital city, and districts, have been made more precise with more distinction based on the internationally recognized subsidiarity principle. According to the new revision of the law, the soums and districts will have increased tax revenues from personal income taxes, land fees, and real estate taxes previously administered by aimag and the central government. The project developed and distributed several model templates to provide input to local governments’ organizational development and effectiveness, including a standard session procedure and the checklist for compliance with the Law on General Administrative Procedure. As a result, opportunities for citizens and civil society organizations to participate in local decision-making have improved. The SRBM project organized several nationwide training series in cooperation with the national counterparts such as the National Academy of Governance, MONFEMNET and Citizens Representatives’ Hurals of 21 aimags, the capital city and nine districts of Ulaanbaatar such as the national induction training, women leadership training and training for chairpersons of bagh public meetings. 73 Citizens Representatives’ Hurals and 23 NGOs have participated in the small grants programme run by the SRBM project. It resulted in the adoption of local policies and plans targeting specific needs of women and youth and creating mechanisms for their participation, environmental protection, monitoring of local budget spending. The project handed over to the Cabinet Secretariat of the Government of Mongolia the portal website www.khural.mn, which has become the largest database and platform of local governments. Important research and analysis have been conducted to support legislative and oversight functions of the parliament such as “Analysis of the implementation of the Law on Standing Order of the Parliament”, recommendations of which were taken up in the revision of the law. An extensive number of knowledge products on parliamentary procedures of other countries, legislative processes were translated, printed, and disseminated to practitioners and scholars. The evaluation capacity of the Secretariat of the State Great Khural has been supported as a result of the technical cooperation between the Mongolian and Swiss Parliamentary Services.