Overall findings: UNDP’s role as a trusted partner to the Government of Mongolia (GoM) on complex and politically sensitive issues of governance and development as well as its convening role creates space for engagement with the GoM on development and governance issues. Development partners see it as a unique role of UNDP. This has enabled development of various legal and policy instruments in the country, though implementation and enforcement of these lag behind. UNDP has been instrumental in developing capacity of various institutions mostly at the national level, namely: National Human Right Commission of Mongolia (NHRCM), International Think Tank for Landlocked Developing Countries (ITT-LLDC), National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the Ministry of Finance (MoF), in particular. A key challenge in the country is to ensure focus on poverty; this will require moving away from
a conventional notion of poverty and a new construct which UNDP is now developing linking poverty and vulnerability to climate change, disaster risk reduction and overall resilience of the economy. Future programming in the areas of poverty and environment will demand ability to bring cross-thematic linkages at all levels, underpinned by a well-articulated theory of change.
With competition for resources getting tougher, it will require UNDP to demonstrate strong
comparative advantage and innovative approaches in resource mobilization.