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

Foreign Disaster Assistance. The project aims to improve disaster risk reduction and management in Mongolia by leveraging traditional knowledge and scientific information. The project focuses on the western and central regions of Mongolia, which are highly susceptible to dzud, a severe environmental hazard that affects livestock and herder communities. The LTS2 project builds on the success of the previous LTS project, which demonstrated the demand for information and management tools to mitigate dzud risks. The project has two critical goals: establishing a national SMS platform for weather and pasture information and increasing aimag and soum-level capacity to provide training on emergency planning, preparation, and mitigation to segmented audiences within the local community. The project team, consisting of Mercy Corps staff, launched on May 1, 2015, and focused on technical design of the proposed SMS system, work planning, and partner mobilization during the first two months. The team worked closely with the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the National Agency of Meteorology and Environmental Management (MNDI) to plan and coordinate project activities. Mercy Corps also participated in the Resilient Mongolian Rangelands conference, which provided opportunities to meet and coordinate with existing and potential partners. The project team identified several new opportunities for coordination and collaboration with other projects, including the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) Green Gold project, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) SMS link to local weather stations, and the World Bank's Information Communication Technology (ICT) oriented extension program. Mercy Corps hosted a weeklong consultation with its Senior Director for Program Technology, Mr. Jeff Wishnie, to develop the SMS system and resolve technical questions. The project team also reached out to aimag and soum governors in all project target areas to formally introduce the project and begin the process of local partner coordination. The team set up an initial SMS distribution mechanism that will allow Keio and MNDI to begin programming soum-level weather and pasture information and test on-demand message delivery in the project target areas. However, several obstacles were identified, including the absence of aggregated SMS service providers in the mobile phone system. The LTS2 project aims to improve disaster risk reduction and management in Mongolia by leveraging traditional knowledge and scientific information. The project has made significant progress in the first two months, including the establishment of a project team, coordination with partners, and development of the SMS system. However, several challenges remain, including the need to address the lack of aggregators in the mobile phone system. The project's focus on building community awareness and mobilization is critical to its success. The project aims to provide training on emergency planning, preparation, and mitigation to segmented audiences within the local community. This will help to increase the capacity of aimag and soum-level authorities to respond to dzud risks and improve the resilience of herder communities. The LTS2 project has the potential to make a significant impact in Mongolia by improving disaster risk reduction and management. The project's focus on leveraging traditional knowledge and scientific information will help to increase the resilience of herder communities and improve their ability to respond to dzud risks.