Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. The Globe International Center (GIC) has been implementing the project, The Mainstreaming Social Accountability for Improved Transparency and Participation in Mongolia, or the MASAM II project, along with World Vision Mongolia and Save the Children. 

On July 1, with the other two implementing partners, GIC held the project’s inception meeting among its partners from all the nine districts of Ulaanbaatar, which saw more than 50 representatives attending. Representatives included the heads and/or specialists of the District Government Offices, District Public Administration Departments, Finance and State Fund Departments, Social Policy and Development Departments, District Health Centers, Planning and Performance Monitoring Department, and selected CSOs by the three implementing partners to collaborate on the MASAM II project.

In her opening remarks, D.Badamchimeg, Public Sector Specialist at the World Bank, noted the differences between the first and second phases. If in the first phase the project’s focus was on building the capacity of government agencies in the health and education sectors, the current phase is focusing on the participation of multiple stakeholders and multilateral cooperation. 

Also, D.Badamchimeg emphasized that the project is aimed at strengthening the participation and capacity of citizens and civil society in monitoring public investment and its proper allocation in the health sector, especially in the provision of primary health care, by supplying them with proper knowledge and skills and improving the coordination between government and non-government sectors. Finally, she raised her expectation from governmental and non-governmental counterparts in successfully collaborating on this nationwide project.

Next, Ch.Enkhbayar, Program Manager at the GIC, introduced the major activities carried out within the project with the first one being baseline study, which conducted utilizing both quantitative and qualitative methods and will be covered topics of health care services and public participation, as well as access to information on public investment. The second undertaking was an online Hackathon on those two key issues. 

Afterwards, Ch.Enkhbayar introduced one NGO and one media outlet organization that will jointly implement the MASAM 2 project. NGOs were reported to have experience in community-based activities, or to have collaborated in Phase I of the project, or to have experience in the concept and tools of social accountability. Finally, he introduced major activities planned in the short term, which are the development of the online module for capacity building of selected NGOs and capacity building of those NGOs. 

Funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA) and implemented by the World Bank, the project will run until the end of 2023.