Citizen Monitoring of Local Development Fund (LDF) (MN0039)

Main objective:
Not only citizens will be engaged in planning of LDF but also citizens will be enabled to participate in implementation of LDF projects; and the monitoring mechanism will be created for citizens' monitoring /Monitoring group/ Monitoring council/

Brief description of commitment:
To create and make "Citizens' monitoring group" operational at State Great Khural, Government, Aimag, Capital city, District, Khoroo and Bags for monitoring of LDF projects.

Ambition:
The citizens will monitor the projects and programs funded by the taxpayers and the citizens' engagement will be ensured In planning and implementation of the proJects/programs through an accountability system created by this; thus, It will ensure citizens' engagement and their living conditions will be improved.

Milestones:
1. Preparation phase to create citizens' monitoring group at bags and khoroos
2. Establishing phase to create citizens' monitoring groups
3. Capacity building phase to capacitate citizens' monitoring group members
4. Preparation for creating citizens' monitoring groups at soums and districts
5. Creating soum and district monitoring groups
6. Organize national consultative meeting

5. Increase civic engagement, enhance the transparency, and monitor Local Development Fund (LDF) project implementation

To create and make citizens’ monitoring group operational at state great khural, government, aimag, capital city, district, khoroo, and bags for monitoring of LDF projects.

Main Objective

Not only citizens will be engaged in planning of LDF, but also citizens will be enabled to participate in implementation of LDF projects and the monitoring mechanism will be created for citizens’ monitoring group/monitoring council.

Milestones

1. Preparation phase to create citizens’ monitoring group at bags and khoroos.
2. Establishing phase to create citizens’ monitoring groups.
3. Capacity building phase to capacitate citizens’ monitoring group members.
4. Preparation for creating citizens’ monitoring groups at soums and districts.
5. Creating soum and district citizens’ monitoring groups.
6. Organize national consultative meeting.

Editorial Note: For the complete text of this commitment, please see Mongolia’s action plan at https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Mongolia_Action-Plan_2019-2021.pdf.

Commitment analysis

This commitment aims to enable citizens to monitor the implementation of taxpayer-funded projects and programs under the Local Development Fund (LDF) through the creation of citizen monitoring groups. Mongolia’s Ministry of Finance, specifically the Budget Consolidation Division, will coordinate with all budgetary governors and a coalition of civil society involved in the OGP process to implement this commitment.

Public access to information on the implementation of projects funded under the LDF as well as its budget allocation is currently limited. As a result, citizens cannot monitor project implementation and hold the government accountable. Through this commitment, the government aims to establish citizen monitoring groups at every bag, ^[34] khoroo, ^[35] and soum ^[36] to undertake monitoring activities of LDF projects.

According to the Law on Budget, ^[37] the LDF is allocated from the state budget to support local development and ensure equity of regions. In other words, the fund is channeled directly to local governments to finance projects that would improve the living standards of citizens. Furthermore, the law specifically mandates that the budgeting process to determine which projects would receive such funding must ensure community participation through open surveys and questionnaires, the results of which have to be prioritized. ^[38]

In 2016, The Asia Foundation found that 82 percent of citizens in 33 khoroos did not know about the LDF and their legal right to participate in project selection and implementation processes. ^[39] As a result, The Asia Foundation expanded on its existing community mapping project, to open and increase citizen access to information around the LDF in their respective khooros. ^[40] Through this commitment, the government aims to supplement existing efforts to increase public awareness about LDF projects, to introduce citizen monitoring groups that will be part of the formal process of project decision making and monitoring of project implementation.

This commitment is relevant to the OGP value of civic participation as it proposes to strengthen public participation in the implementation and monitoring of LDF projects. The commitment is also generally verifiable as preparing, establishing, and building capacity of citizen monitoring groups are all adequately measurable milestones. The commitment could be more specific, however, in defining the composition and scope of the monitoring groups, including the extent to which the groups can enforce decisions in relation to LDF administration.

If fully implemented as written, this commitment would have moderate potential impact on improving LDF administration through citizen monitoring groups. The creation of the groups would represent a significant development from the status quo. In providing for such groups, the commitment will give partial effect to existing legal provisions mandating community participation in LDF allocation and administration. ^[41] The introduction of these citizen groups will also supplement and leverage pre-existing initiatives to strengthen LDF administration, including civil society efforts to raise public awareness of the fund and engage in community mapping of associated projects. ^[42]

Despite this potential, the scope of this commitment is also linked to the, currently unclear, extent to which the proposed citizen monitoring groups will be able to influence and enforce decisions around LDF administration and to hold government officials accountable for effective implementation of the LDF projects. This, in turn, is contingent on the availability of accessible information on the projects; which is not a feature of this commitment. The commitment also does not describe the composition of the proposed groups, which could influence the extent to which the monitoring groups are able to effectively represent, and safeguard the interests of, diverse stakeholders in society.

Going forward, the government could take measures to incorporate clear mechanisms for the citizen monitoring groups to hold government accountable for LDF administration and ensure that the groups’ composition is representative of diverse groups in society. The government could also identify existing initiatives that support LDF administration, such as the Asia Foundation’s community mapping project, ^[43] and collaborate proactively to strengthen overall results.

5.Increase civic engagement, enhance the transparency, and monitor Local Development Fund (LDF) project implementation

Limited:

This commitment faced a number of obstacles, including unclear policy, legal, and regulatory frameworks; redundancies in stakeholders’ responsibilities; and budgetary restrictions. [20] Overall, the government self-assessment report noted limited progress on including citizens in planning, implementing, and monitoring Local Development Fund projects. [21] According to the Cabinet Secretariat, amendment of the national constitution left insufficient time to develop a legal environment for this commitment’s implementation. [22]