Mongolia Design Report 2019-2021

The development of Mongolia’s third action planAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen... took place in a context of a government transition resulting in significant shortcomings in the co-creation processCollaboration between government, civil society and other stakeholders (e.g., citizens, academics, private sector) is at the heart of the OGP process. Participating governments must ensure that a dive.... The action plan is largely aligned with national priorities with commitments in new policy areas such as waste management and contracts transparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More for internationally funded projects. Moving ahead, the Government of Mongolia needs to reactivate its OGP multistakeholder forum and focus on sustained implementation of reforms to fight corruption and improve service delivery.

The Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More (OGP) is a global partnership that brings together government reformers and civil society leaders to create action plans that make governments more inclusive, responsive, and accountable. The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM)The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) is OGP’s accountability arm and the main means of tracking progress in participating countries. The IRM provides independent, evidence-based, and objective ... monitors all action plans to ensure governments follow through on commitments. Mongolia joined OGP in 2013. Since, Mongolia has implemented two action plans. This report evaluates the design of Mongolia’s third action plan.

Mongolia’s legislative and presidential elections in 2016 and 2017 contributed to a delayed OGP process. The development of the country’s third action plan formally commenced in August 2018 with a government-hosted workshop. Prior to this, civil society organizations (CSOs) independently collected public feedback on their proposals for action plan commitments. However, the Cabinet Secretariat, which leads Mongolia’s OGP process, did not report on how these proposals were incorporated in the final action plan. In general, the overall co-creation process was weakened by the absence of a functional multistakeholder forum, as well as gaps in coordination between government and civil society stakeholders which prevented iterative dialogue. In January 2019, the Chief of the Cabinet Secretariat approved the country’s third action plan, without consulting civil society, and submitted it to OGP in April 2019. The country thus fell short of the threshold for participation in the development of the action plan and was thus found to be acting contrary to OGP process.^[i]

Several policy areas are continued from previous action plans including beneficial ownershipDisclosing beneficial owners — those who ultimately control or profit from a business — is essential for combating corruption, stemming illicit financial flows, and fighting tax evasion. Technical... More transparency, open contractingA transparent procurement process, known as open contracting, increases competition, improves public service delivery, and ensures governments better value for their money. Technical specifications: C... More, and improvement of public service deliveryTo ensure that citizens of all groups are better supported by the government, OGP participating governments are working to improve the quality of and access to public services. Commitments in this are... More. The action plan also aligns with the Mongolia Sustainable Development Vision 2030, the Three-Pillar Development Policy, and the National Anti-Corruption Strategy. The plan contains a potentially transformative commitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action... to open up international aidMore and better information about aid helps partner countries and donor institutions plan and manage aid resources more effectively, parliaments and civil society to hold governments accountable for t... and loan data around health and infrastructure projects. However, this action plan is less ambitious than previous action plans as a whole, with six commitments of minor and one of no potential impact.

Moving forward, the Cabinet Secretariat needs to prioritize reactivation of the multistakeholder forum and thematic working groups. The forum needs to collaborate closely with civil society to design and monitor implementation of commitments in key reform areas of anti-corruption and public service delivery.

Table 2. Noteworthy commitments

Recommendations

IRM recommendations aim to inform the development of the next action plan and guide implementation of the current action plan. Please refer to Section V: General Recommendations for more details on each of the below recommendations.

Table 3. Five Key IRM Recommendations

[i] Open Government Partnership, Procedural Review, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/procedural-review/