[ULAANBAATAR, JUNE 3rd, 2020] - The Government of Mongolia and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) signed a five-year $284.9 million Compact in October 2007, which was designed to increase the country’s economic growth and reduce poverty, by investing in five project areas, such as health, vocational education, energy and environment, transportation, and property rights. A virtual stakeholders workshop on performance evaluation of the Registry System Strengthening Component of the Property Rights Project (PRP) under the first Compact was organized by the Cloudburst Group, a contractor of the MCC on the June 3rd, 2020.
The meeting was attended by Mr. Eric Guetschoff, Deputy Resident Country Director for Mongolia and Mr. Leonard Rolfes, Senior Property Rights Advisor, representing the MCC, Ms. Sodontogos Erdenetsogt, Chief Executive Officer and Mr. Uuganbayar Budsuren, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Economic Analysis Director, representing MCA-Mongolia, as well as Ms. Kate Marple-Cantrell, Evaluation Specialist at The Cloudburst Group and representatives of other stakeholders.
In the beginning, Ms. Sodontogos introduced the Water Supply Project, being implemented under the Mongolia Water Compact and highlighted its importance in ensuring the sustainability of Ulaanbaatar city water supply.
According to the final report of Registry Systems Process under the PRP presented by Kate Marple from The Cloudburst Group, the project provided support to the pre-existing challenges, such as the need for stronger property rights regulations, improvement of municipal land use planning, and streamlined and accessible pathway to land and property ownership. The achievements and long term results of the PRP are provided as follows:
- Working conditions and service quality improved as a result of improved land administration system.
- Transactions became more efficient as land transaction time and cost decreased.
- Due to the legal change allowing individuals to claim privatized land and the 8% mortgage subsidy program, land transaction volume and use of the formal system rose.
- Land transfers in the informal or black-market system got reduced significantly and people gained confidence in the land governance system.
- Access to credit improved as the time taken in the non-mortgage loan application process decreased.
- Ability to monetize land value and transferability improved.
- The time and costs savings attributable to the PRP have benefitted women to carry out administrative steps in transactions.
During the open discussions that took place after the presentations, Mr. Uuganbayar Budsuren, the Monitoring, Evaluation and Economic Analysis Director of MCA-Mongolia, noted, “It has been a pleasure to attend an open discussion on the final results of a project under the First Compact. There are numerous aspects to observe and learn from the first Compacts implementation for the second Compact team.”
The virtual workshop ended with concluding remarks from Ms. Jennifer Lisher, Director of Land Monitoring and evaluation Sector Lead, Department of Policy and Evaluation, MCC. She thanked all the stakeholders of the first Compact for their genuine participation and wished MCA-Mongolia a successful implementation of the Mongolia Water Compact.
###
Millennium Challenge Account - Mongolia is a state-owned enterprise established by the decision of the Government of Mongolia on October 3, 2018, pursuant to Government Resolution No 297 in accordance with Section 3.2 of the Compact to implement the Program under the 350 million USD Mongolia Water Compact signed with the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a U.S. government foreign aid agency.
The Millennium Challenge Corporation is an independent U.S. government agency working to reduce global poverty through economic growth. Created in 2004, MCC provides time-limited grants and assistance to poor countries that meet rigorous standards for good governance, from fighting corruption to respecting democratic rights. Learn more about MCC at www.mcc.gov.