USAID cooperative agreement no. 493-A-00-96-00003-00 with The Asia Foundation to provide support for a program entitled "strengthening civil society in Mongolia"

The grant pursues Intermediate Result #1 of Strategic Objective (SO) #2 for USAID/Mongolia: Gains in the transparency, accountability, competency, and responsiveness of Mongolia"s primary institutions of democracy consolidated. TAF will work with 10 CINGOs -- 5 of them women"s groups -- that are actively concerned with critical public policy fields such as corruption, labor and unemployment, the environment, government budget procedures, women, poverty, the media, election systems, secondary markets, and other macro-economic issues such as privatization, banking, and taxation. The Foundation will take a four-pronged approach to the development of these NGOs. (1) TAF will support activities aimed at finalizing the draft NGO law, educating Members of Parliament (MPs) and the public about its key provisions, and working toward its passage in the new parliament. This is an essential step if Mongolian NGOs are to be successful in taking on an effective policy advocacy role. (2) TAF will support NGOs pursuing a range of economic and other policy issues. These NGOs will interface with the government in their advocacy and oversight activities and with the general public in their civic education roles. (3) TAF will fund NGOs that provide research and information support services to other NGOs engaged directly in policy development, oversight, or reform. Thus, important linkages of communication and support will be established between NGOs as well as between NGOs and the government and between NGOs and the public. (4) Two new and important NGOs are now in the incipient stages of planning and development. The Foundation is prepared to fund the start-up costs of at least one of them. Grant activities are intended to complement USAID"s economic policy SO #1. For example, TAF expects that the Women Economists" Club will carry out independent research and analysis on macroeconomic policy issues leading to position papers that will be presented to the parliament and government during the third quarter of the grant period.