UNDP ICT Programme Officer/Focal Point

ICT Programme Office/Focal Point A

Full Name

Tsolmon

Designation/Position

Economist

Station (UNDP Country Office)

Mongolia

Email Address

Tsolmon@undp.org

Telephone Number

976-11-327585

Fax Number

976-11-326221

Government Agency(ies) with Primary Responsibility

Ministry/Agency

Ministry of Infrastructure

Contact Person A

Full Name (First, Last)

Bat-Erdene J.

Designation/Title

IT senior officer of the ICT Policy Coordination Department

Email Address

Ict_mng@mongol.net

Contact Person B

Full Name (First, Last)

Odgerel U.

Designation/Title

Director of the Information and Monitoring Department

Email Address

holboo@magicnet.mn

National Development Priorities

Please list the Government’s primary developmental and sectoral priorities:

The current vision is defined considering information and communication technology as a major accelerator to develop Mongolia in 21st century, which provides favorable conditions for development of government-legislation, economy-business, people-society frameworks and based on necessity to establish state policy and regulatory regimes.

e-Readiness Assessment

Has the Government (or any third party or donor) conducted a multi-sectoral ICT or e-readiness assessment of the country?

YES

Report on E-readiness Assessment of Mongolia, by Narantsetseg B., Infocon Co.Ltd, 2002, http://www.mongolia-gateway.mn
 

Existing e-Policies, -Strategies, Acts, Decrees, etc

Has the Government developed, or is the Government planning to develop, ICT policies?

YES

Considering that the information communications technology is the fundamental accelerator of Mongolia’s development in the 21st century and based on the “Information Communications Technology Development Concept for the Period up to 2010”, we have defined as follows the medium-term development strategy in this sector in order to establish a state policy and regulatory system and create a favorable environment for human and social, economic and business, political and legal developments.  http://www.ict.mn/midas/laws_policies
 

Ministry/Agency in Charge of ICT Policy Formulation

National ICT Committee, Ministry of Infrastructure

Was the process of ICT policy formulation participatory in nature, and did it involve stakeholders?

YES

The National ICT Committee is an advisory body to the Mongolian Government, which consists of representatives of Government, Private Sector, Education and Civil Society.
 

Does the Government have an official policy on ICT and Gender?

NO

There is not a big gender issues in ICT. However, there is a big digital divide between urban and rural, downtown and surrounding areas.
 

Does the Government have an official policy on Open Source Software?

NO
 

Access

How is the Government addressing the issue of equitable access to ICT for all of its citizens, especially marginalized groups and those in rural communities?

Please see Action plan. www.ict.mn/laws_policies.
 

What is the Government planning to do to increase local connectivity to the Internet?

According to the newly adapted Telecommunication law the Mongolian Government is opened free competition for the basic communication networks. Also several Telecommunication projects have been implemented recently in order to provide communication facilities in rural areas.

There are some starts of creation Internet connections due to improved telecommunication facilities.
 

Has the Government implemented, or is it planning to implement, e-government/e-governance initiatives to better deliver government services through the application of ICT and to improve government transparency and efficiency?

YES

In scope of the “Good Governance” project have planned several e-government related activities. Due to lack of resources most of them still on paper.  There are some activities have been done so far in e-government issues such as launching www.open-government.mn web site for the discussion of issues with public, created Public Management Information Systems  (PMIS) in 1998. There is a big demand of improving and upgrading PMIS due to the technical and technological obsolete.
 

Local Content Development and Knowledge Management

Is the Government aware of or is it active in standardization and localization of ICTs (e.g. local input/output conventions and standards for digital exchange, development of local language character sets conforming to international UNICODE and other standards) for fostering local content development and knowledge management?

YES

Standardization Committee has approved unified standard for the Mongolian Letter as Unicode. They are also discussing standard of using Roman letter, format of document and other related issues for digital exchanges.
 

Please suggest how UNDP can assist in further developing local content development.

- Organizing promotional contests for the local content development
- Training for the web developers and content developers in rural areas
 

International Donors of ICT for Development

Please list (in order of total contributions for 2002) the top five donors who have invested in ICT for Development.  DO NOT include UNDP.

Donor

Specific Area of Support

Amount (USD)

1

Indian Government

Training Center

1 Mln

2

Soros Foundation

Aimag area network in 3 aimags
MIDAS-2 – Mongolian Software Development 
Open web center – assisting NGOs in web development

60,000

3

ADB

Academic Network (Erdemnet ISP)

4

JICA

Sakura Project – assisting rural schools for the e-mail connection

5

KOICA

IT park

1 Mln

6

IDRC

ICT Policy Research
E-learning

65,000

7

Worldbank

Content development
Capacity building

8

IFC

Investor’s forum

Please list (in order of priority) the five top areas of ICT for Development for the donor community.  E.g. e-Government, e-Commerce, e-Learning, ICT policy, etc.

1

KOICA

2

Indian Government

3

Soros foundation

4

WB and IFC

5

IDRC

Please list and describe the three primary ICT for Development areas of focus for your UNDP Country Office.

NOTE: Please DO NOT list actual projects/activities, there is another section for this information.  Please describe the general focus areas (e-policies, e-government, e-commerce, e-learning, etc.) instead.

Area One
E-governance

Area Two
Capacity building

Area Three
Content development

Check List: Please provide additional comments where applicable.

UNDP has played or is playing a crucial role in assisting the national government with ICT policy formulation.

NO
 

ICT for Development is a well established programme area within your UNDP Country Office.

NO
 

The UNDP Country Office requires assistance in identifying UNDP’s potential niche in ICT for Development interventions in the country.

YES
 

The UNDP Country Office is in partnership with the local government in ICT for Development initiatives/projects/activities.

YES

Ministry of Infrastructure
 

Please share with us some UNDP County Office success stories, lessons learned, etc., with respect to the work that you have done in ICT for Development.

UNV (JTF)
 

Project/Activity Information

Project Title

Gross border e-Service

Start Date

End Date

Objectives

To promote gross border e-services for the Mongolian ICT companies

Description (200 words maximum)

1st step of the project was to conduct survey on ICT companies. During this step several surveys and training.

After the completion of the 1st step of the project, companies listed below were selected to participate in the 2nd step of the project- practical experience of e-job, particularly in data entry job. Bodicomputer, Interactive, Orgiltech, Engineersoft, Infocon, JEMR, Datacom and BSB Co.Ltd. The companies had a meeting and decided to create a working group under MIDAS.

The MIDAS secretariat was also tapped as the temporary secretariat of the project in order to handle data entry job registration, dissemination, checking, receiving from the companies, sending outputs back to USA, financial issues related to the job and maintain a connection with the participating parties. E-job@ict.mn e-mailing list is serving e-job the participants for the sharing of information.

An FTP was also established for downloading job and uploading results using the Bodicomputer Co.Ltd ISP.

The working group was operating on testing of the data entry job. Especially, they were spending more time for developing a technology, which can be suitable and profitable for the companies. 

3rd MIT scholar Guilo Pappalardo has been done extended survey on software development companies.

UNDP Project Officer

Maargreet van Doodewaard

National Project Officer

Narantsetseg

:

Partners (National)

Enkhjargal Sukhbaatar              secretary@ict.mn

Partners (International)

Jeremy Hockeinshtein

Cross-Cutting UNDP Themes

Poverty Reduction

Geographical Scope

Ulaanbaatar

Target Beneficiaries

IT companies

Expected Outputs/ Results

Training and possible start of gross border e-services.

Project URLs (websites)

www.ict.mn/midas/ejob.htm

Budget (USD)

UNDP Contribution (USD)

National (USD)

Other Donors (USD)

Keywords

E-job, gross border e-services, data entry, outsourcing

Additional Comments

Project/Activity Information

Project Title

UNV in Mongolia

Start Date

End Date

Objectives

The project seeks to contribute to the socio-economic empowerment of Mongolian people through building their capacity to utilize information and Communication Technology for sustainable livelihoods.

Description (200 words maximum)

Three groups of mixed team of international and national UN Volunteers are deployed.

One group supports the activities of community organizations and builds their capacity through ICT, assisting them to improve their usage of multi-media techniques.

The UNV team is also expected to stimulate the formation of a cluster of local e-professionals who can act in the future as a resource for knowledge-based industries in Mongolia.

The second UNV team will focus on building the business and management information capacity of the Mongolian Information Development Association (MIDAS) secretariat and NGOs who receive grant support through the organization, as well as selected UNDP projects.

The third team focuses their assistance on helping to create a favorable environment for ICT in the country. They provide support and advice to the policy and best practices research of the MIDAS/ICT Council Secretariat.

Also the JTF UNV group is organising all Mongolian Web Award every year in order to promote Mongolian content on the Internet.

UNDP Project Officer

Nira Sharma

 nira.sharma@undp.org

National Project Officer

Enkhtsetseg

 che@undp.org

Partners (National)

Enkhjargal Sukhbaatar              secretary@ict.mn

Partners (International)

Japanese Trust Fund

Cross-Cutting UNDP Themes

Democratic Governance; Poverty Reduction

Geographical Scope

Ulaanbaatar

Target Beneficiaries

Civil Society, general public

Expected Outputs/ Results

Narrowing digital divide
Creation of favourable conditions for the ICT development in Mongolia.

Project URLs (websites)

www.jtf.mn

Budget (USD)

UNDP Contribution (USD)

National (USD)

Other Donors (USD)

Keywords

UNV, ICT, Capacity building, JTF, content development, web design

Additional Comments