Community Mobilization for Pastureland Management, Sustainable Livelihoods Project

Name of Client: World Bank and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Household Livelihood Program Office.

The pastoral risk management component aims to reduce the vulnerability of herders and enhance their resilience to drought, dzud  (‘winter disasters’) and other shocks through testing and developing approaches in support of risk forecasting and contingency planning; grazing and pasture management; herder self-help initiatives; and hay and fodder enterprise development.
Development objective of the assignment is to access to pasture land secured and effective risk management strategies in livestock production adopted by poor and vulnerable herders.

Detailed Description of Actual Services provided :

• Evaluated the impact of SLP-supported pastureland management/mapping activities on the livelihood of herders, especially poor and vulnerable groups
• Collected the best practices in pastureland management/mapping and conflict resolution
• Developed training materials for building capacities of local government bodies and herder groups in the effective use of the new land law in the area of pastureland management, water management and haymaking
• Organized capacity building activities on management/mapping and conflict  resolution for local government bodies and herder groups in project aimags
• Assisted the Agency for Land Relations, Geodesy and Cartography in developing and approving the methodologies for annual sum lad management planning. The methodologies have been approved by the head of the agency on 30 June 2006, Order No 131 and delivered to all aimags and sums for immediate implementation. The methodologies are entirely based on the knowledge and experiences of pastureland management and mapping activities undertaken by CPR since 2003 under SLP, thus made a legal basis for sustainability of the project’s achievements in this area
• Designed a demonstration program to be used in 2 pilot soums with the objective of identifying the critical capacity, institutional and financial requirements for effective pastoral management
• Identified roles and participation of herders and herders institutions in planning, implementation and monitoring pasture and ways for improvement
• Demonstrated in 2 pilot soums the feasibility of community-based, participatory and bottom-up institutional frameworks for managing pastureland and water resources (organized digging wells, fencing water points and geophysical survey for water points)
• Supported the development of annual land management and risk management plans at soum and aimag level
• Developed a national training curriculum and program to build institutional capacity for pastureland and risk management
• Prepared draft amendments to the effective Land Law to improve the pastureland tenure, ownership mentality among herders and build local capacities to manage pastureland resources
• Worked with the National Advisory Council on Pastureland Management at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to determine the institutional framework required for pastureland and risk management.