Support for Mining and Development in Mongolia

In recent years, Revenue Watch has worked closely with the Open Society Forum (OSF)-Mongolia and other strategic partners, including the Central Asia and Caucasus EITI Coalitions, to promote  transparency and accountability in Mongolia's mining sector. In 2006, OSF led civil society representatives to establish the Coalition of NGOs to support EITI and promote the implementation of the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) in Mongolia. RWI and the World Bank have financed capacity building of local civil society organizations participating in and promoting the EITI process in Mongolia. However, EITI implementation has been uneven, and much work remains to move the process forward.

With RWI support, OSF has also provided several memoranda with policy analysis and recommendations for policymakers on issues of taxation, fiscal projections for specific mines and improving the legal environment. OSF's assistance also included periodic country visits, distance consultation, and commentary and analysis. RWI and OSF are also working to build the capacity of local civil society movements, providing information and help with participation in international and domestic seminars, workshops, and other activities aimed at giving civic organizations greater participation in policy decision-making.

OSF's work in 2006-2008 resulted in an enormous increase in awareness and debate amongst civil society, requests for technical assistance from the government, and concrete changes to taxation and revenue management policy. Given the sustained importance of the mining sector's development in Mongolia, and the headway OSF with the assistance of RWI has made, the Forum is continuing its resource revenue transparency project striving to ensure that the mining sector's contributions to economic growth are adequate, transparent, sustainable and participatory in nature. OSF's work focuses on resource revenue transparency and EITI; contract transparency; licensing transparency; tracking and distribution of mining revenues; and crosscutting issues, such as creating methodological tool-kits and industry transparency ratings.

As the general trend towards good governance strengthens in Mongolia, issues of transparency and accountability and provisions of RWI financial and technical support become ever more important, particularly as RWI and OSF's potential for impact increases. This current context empowers OSF to continue mobilizing expertise of stakeholders and further develop civil society initiatives pushing towards more responsible, transparent mining and revenue management.

For more information on the activities of OSF-Mongolia, please see www.soros.org/about/foundations/mongolia.