Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ “The cooperation between the Government of Mongolia and UNICEF during the period 2012-2016 has brought many results”, said Roberto Benes, UNICEF Representative to Mongolia to reporters at a meeting to discuss the results of 2012-2016 cooperation between Mongolian Government and UNICEF, which is taking place in Shangri-La Hotel today, January 25.

“Today, children are better off than in 2012 in number of key areas, especially in the two geographic areas Khuvsgul and Nalaikh; with provided access to kindergarten, water and sanitation in schools, but also better opportunities for children when it comes to their health and immunization. Together with these results at local level, we have important progress on national level. I want to thank the Mongolian Government for their commitment especially in improving legislations and policies”, he noted.

The meeting’s first session was dedicated to discussing 2016 results and lessons learnt. The outcome of UNICEF’s activities last year was outlined in four sections – social policy, media and partnership, child friendly community and child friendly school.

The second session focused on cycle-wide review of progress: main achievements, opportunities and lessons learnt. The discussion was on the UNICEF’s progress at the national and sub-national level, progress on data, knowledge and partnership and financial utilization.

The last session was themed ‘The bridge to the new cycle and key features of the new country programme document’, and the expected outcome of the new programme was introduced.

“By learning from the lessons from the past, we want to improve our service to children of Mongolia in the future. That’s why we are discussing the next five years today”, Mr. Benes said.

He continued, “It is very important that we increase our efforts to address inequality which prevent Mongolian children from unlocking their fantastic potentials. So, we are targeting equalities in health, education,  access to water and sanitation and nutrition, but also, at the same time will invest our efforts and support in those areas where the return of investment is the highest such as early childhood education, the first five years when the brain has the highest capacity of potential and development, adolescence health and child protection. These are all areas we will focus on in the next five years, increasing our support to the Government of Mongolia; and by doing so, serving children in the best possible way”.

“One important way to address inequality is to replicate at the larger scale. Today, we can say we know what works for children and the solutions to children problems because we tested these in the last couple of years. And now we will replicate our success at the larger scale in new five geographic areas”.

“I am very happy to say that our funding for 2017-2021 has slightly increased which is a result of successful fund raising and the good performance of Mongolian Government and UNICEF. The tentative total budget for the programmes of next five years is about USD 26 million, and Mr. Benes said that he was happy to confirm an increase in budget than the previous cycle.