Improving Adaptive Capacity and Risk Management of Rural communities in Mongolia - Project Overview
Published by UNDP Climate on 24 April 2024
With an observed temperature increase of 2.1°C over the past 70 years, Mongolia is among the countries most impacted by climate change. Increased temperatures, coupled with decreased precipitation, have resulted in a drying trend impacting pastures and water sources, and shifting natural zones.
Responses to climate impacts by herders have not been informed by climate information or by the potential impact of those responses on land and water resources. Unsustainable herding practices and livestock numbers are further stressing increasingly fragile ecosystems and related ecosystem services.
Herder households make up one third of the population in Mongolia, approximately 160,000 households or 90 percent of the agriculture sector. Around 85 percent of all provincial economies in are agriculture-based. While herder households are the most exposed to climate risks, their scale and thus potential impact also means that tailored interventions can support transformational change towards more climate-informed and sustainable herder practices, benefitting the sector, the economy and the environment.
Led by the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, with the Ministry of Agriculture and Light Industry as a key partner, the 7-year UNDP-supported project 'Improving Adaptive Capacity and Risk Management of Rural communities in Mongolia', seeks to strengthen the resilience of resource-dependent herder communities in four aimags (provinces) vulnerable to climate change: Khovd, Zavkhan, Dornod and Sukhbaatar, thus covering steppe, desert steppe, mountain, mountain steppe and forest steppe zones.
With funding from the Green Climate Fund, the project focuses on three complementary outputs:
- Integrating climate information into land and water use planning at the national and sub-national levels
- Scaling up climate-resilient water and soil management practices for enhanced small scale herder resource management
- Building herder capacity to access markets for sustainably sourced, climate-resilient livestock products.
Learn more: https://www.undp.org/mongolia/project...