Opening Remarks by Ms. Elaine Conkievich

Resident Representative, UNDP Mongolia

12 June 2020

UN House, Mongolia

UNDP Mongolia is honored to jointly host today’s consultations on the first SDGs aligned medium-term development policy and planning document for Nalaikh district, Ulaanbaatar, - thank you very much for attendance and interest. 

As the world, particularly, developing countries, learned the hard way from implementation of the Millennium development goals, local governments have a special role in the implementation of the SDGs. It is estimated that local governments active involvement is necessary to achieve 65 percent of the SDGs. The SDGs have also plenty to offer to local governments, as they provide a unique umbrella for a high-quality, integrated, inclusive, and ambitious planning. There should be sustained exchanges between the global, national and local levels to negotiate and balance local needs and aspirations with that of the sustainable development agenda in order to enable local governments to become catalysts of change. Local actors need to fully participate, not only in the implementation, but also in the agenda setting for, and monitoring of the SDGs. Putting “localization” into practice has not been easy. In some respect, countries have had to rethink their governance systems in order to allow local governments to galvanize bottom-up action and take an active role in setting SDG policy and its implementation. 

UNDP is committed to provide support to translate the SDGs ambitions into national and local development plans, sectoral policies and budgets across the different levels of Government. I am very pleased to see Ulaanbaatar’s strong commitment to implement the Sustainable Development Goals. UNDP Mongolia supported Ulaanbaatar city to develop the SDG Roadmap, which was approved by the Citizen’s Representative Khural of Ulaanbaatar last February, and that Ulaanbaatar continues collaboration to implement the plan through various pilot projects such as SDG-based policy response, which is even more relevant now as Mongolia finds its way through the new COVID-19 world. 

UNDP Mongolia has supported the UB initiative to develop a first district development plan aligned with the global, national Development Vision and UB SDG Roadmap in two districts of Ulaanbaatar, namely,Songinokhairkhan and Nalaikh.  Nalaikh district is one of the least populousand one with major challenges with issues around poverty and unemployment in Ulaanbaatar city. The district population increased over 60 percent in the last 20 years. 27.3 percent of total households of the district lived below poverty line as per 2018 data. As of 2018, the labor participation ratio by gender in Nalaikh district stood at 71.4 percent for men and 53.3 percent for women. Compared to other districts the ratio is relatively high, but women’s labor force participation is significantly lower than men’s like in other districts and in the country. One of the main reasons for this is attributable to the fact that women are unable to work full-time due to the need to care for the elderly, PWDs and children at homeas access to preschool education in particular, for disabled children, is highly limited in the district due to capacity.  And though women may bewilling to work part-time, there is lack of part time jobs and the part-time wage system is underdeveloped. 45 percent of the district residents received some type of social welfare assistance in 2019. The number of social welfare beneficiaries and social welfare spending on them increased 3.8 times and 2.6 times respectively in the last 4 years.  Unemployment stood at 8.4 percent in 2019 making it one of the 4 districts in Ulaanbaatar, with the highest unemployment. Unemployment in the district is mainly related to closure of traditional mines due to Ulaanbaatar city air pollution and mine safety concerns. The district has taken an initiative to address the structural unemployment by encouraging companies operating in itsterritory to hire residents of the district, which has resulted in the fact that 80 percent of employees hired by the companies are local residents.   

A new development perspective and trajectory is thus especially needed for the development of Nalaikh district, in order to reduce inequalities and accelerate the implementation of the SDGs in Mongolia given our strong commitment to the principle of “leaving no one behind”.

I am very pleased that the governor’s offices of Ulaanbaatar and Naliakhdistrict have had a series of consultations on the new Development Policy document for Naliakh district despite the COVID-19 related restrictions on public meetings and gatherings. 

I believe this has served as an excellent opportunity and learning by doing exercise for the district officials to develop their first development plan aligned with the UB SDG Roadmap and for the city officials to translate the SDG Roadmap into the district development plan. 

Thank you very much and wishing you all fruitful consultations and successful implementation of the first medium-term development plan for the district. 

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