Leveraging Tradition and Science in Disaster Risk Reduction in Mongolia-2 (LTS2-Mongolia)

The project aims to support the use of weather and pasture data in production planning through the Gobi Forage project, which was introduced in 2007. The project continues to receive international development support from the World Bank. The LTS2 project is expanding upon the initial work of the LTS project, which evaluated existing disaster risk reduction (DRR) and disaster management systems, connected local communities to weather information, trained local administrations on emergency management planning, and tested an SMS information platform. The LTS project demonstrated that herders are eager for more information and better tools to support dzud preparation and risk mitigation. The LTS2 project is accomplishing two critical goals: 1) a national SMS platform for weather and pasture information and 2) increased aimag (province) and soum-level capacity to provide training on emergency planning, preparation, and mitigation to segmented audiences within the local community. During the third quarter of 2015, the project team conducted soum-level direct trainings by local trainers in 67 soums of 10 aimags. Representatives of OFDA, USAID, and the US Embassy visited Ugiinuur soum, Arkhangai aimag, to observe soum-level training. The team built the SMS message system in 9 soums and tested SMS message delivery and receipt by local training participants. The project collected best practices from 115 herders from 10 aimags and started testing skills and knowledge retention of training participants two months after completion of trainings. Soum emergency plans have been improved in 35 of the target 69 soums, and selected 45 out of 115 best practices for the 2nd edition of the Dzud Lessons book. The project team continued to work with MNDI and Keio University to build and test the SMS system in all target aimags and launched training activities. However, in December 2015, MNDI was absorbed into another national planning institute as a result of budget shortfalls within the Mongolian Government. The LTS2 team agreed with the National University of Mongolia (NUM) to build out the SMS system under their umbrella, working with Dr. Suvdantsetseg in her capacity as the lead researcher in NUM's remote sensing laboratory. The project team continues to work closely with NEMA under sub-sector Capacity Building and Training. The project initiated work on the SMS delivery system based on the engageSPARK (eS) 2 platform, which will deliver weather and pasture updates on-demand in response to a text prompt from the user. The weekly forecasts will be updated automatically and delivered via eS. With the demise of MNDI, Mercy Corps will host the messaging system as the building of the SMS system is carried forward. A final Mongolian home for the messaging system will be identified once the system is up and running and resources needed to maintain it can be clearly elaborated.