About UNFPA in Mongolia

UNFPA has provided assistance to Mongolia since the late 1970s.The assistance consisted of equipment and training for the central Statistics Office to carry out the population census of 1979 and 1989. Assistance to maternal and child health (MCH) began in the early 1980s and consisted of training for medical personnel and provision of small amounts of contraceptives.

The first country programme of assistance between the Government of Mongolia and UNFPA began in 1992. In 2002 the third country programme (2002-2006) was initiated. The decade of cooperation between UNFPA and Mongolia has laid a solid foundation for future collaboration. It has helped to strengthen Maternal and Child health services and developed human resources particularly in the area of demographic studies and census. UNFPA assistance, although financially limited, was instrumental in helping health authorities understand the critical link between reproductive health and maternal child health. As a result, the Government now supports reproductive health strategies, including family planning, as a major element of the country’s Safe Motherhood preventive health care strategy. The success of past assistance in establishing reliable data collection, household registration and a population statistics system has formed the base for integrating, analyzing and disseminating data, as well as ensuring that population factors are an integral part of development planning.

Specific achievements include: The establishment of the Population Training and Research Center, the production and massive distribution of Reproductive Health (RH) Clinical guidelines, training of health workers, provision of a wide range of contraceptives and essential RH drugs for safe motherhood and treatment of sexually transmitted infections, as well as nation-wide provision of basic medical equipment, massive distribution of information materials on prevention of sexually transmitted infections, on contraceptives, on healthy breast, and others. Publishing and distribution of the quarterly RH-Newsletter. Introduction in all schools on a new sexually education curriculum and training of teachers. A newsletter "Love" for young people distributed throughout the country, as well as several TV and radio programme for adolescents. Conduct of the 1998 Reproductive Health Survey and of the 2000 Population and Housing Census, both meeting international standards, and widely disseminated. Production of several research and reports. Throughout all of its activities, UNFPA builds capacity in the areas mentioned.

The full-fledged UNFPA Country Office in Mongolia was opened in December 1998 by Ms. Linda Demers, who served as Representative until October 2002. From October 2002, Mr. Birat Simha has taken over the duties as a Representative till September 2004. Ms. Delia Barcelona presented her credentials as the UNFPA Mongolia Representative on 12 August 2005.

Please go to Asia and the Pacific Regional Programme website for further details on Mongolia.

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