Thirty two participants representing herder cooperatives and multi stakeholders of the project took part in the virtual knowledge exchange meeting held on 31 March 2021. They included local soum insurance officers and herder members of cooperatives from Otgon, Durvuljin, Ider, Ikh-Uul and Tes soums of Zavkhan province in Mongolia as well as representatives from ILO Mongolia, the National Association of Mongolian Agricultural Cooperatives (NAMAC) and its leading member cooperatives from Gobi-Altai province.

Ms Bolormaa Purevsuren, ILO National Coordinator, highlighted the importance of improving the herders' social protection through the cooperatives within the Extending Social Protection to Herders with Enhanced Shock Responsiveness project. She further encouraged selected cooperatives to actively participate in project activities, learn from the experiences of successful cooperatives, integrate their learnings into their own operations, establish new contacts, and partner with each other.

During the meeting, U.Ganbaatar, Head of the Cooperative development department of NAMAC, gave a presentation on the joint activities of the project as well as a detailed account of target cooperatives’ activities within the “Strengthening the governance of herder cooperatives and implementation of incentive mechanisms to increase social insurance coverage.

The online meeting included presentations by T.Erdenebat, Chairman of “Buyan-Undral” leading cooperative from Darvi soum of Gobi-Altai province, on “Members' participation in the coop's activities and their motivation”, as well as T.Tsend, Manager of “Altantevsh” leading cooperative from Biger soum of Govi-Altai province, who presented on the subject of “Running multi-functional activities which meet the needs of member herders”. Mr. Munkhdalai, Chairman of “Khuvdelger” cooperative from Delgersoum of Gobi-Altai province, also shared his experiences on the partnership between cooperatives and the local government.

The participants actively engaged in discussion, raising many questions about the various experiences shared by the presenters and expressing their interest in visiting their facilities once the pandemic situation improves, with the aim of establishing partnerships based on similarities in activities or social situations.

The online meeting is part of the United Nations Joint Project on Extending Social Protection to Herders with Enhanced Shock Responsiveness which aims to support the government and stakeholders to promote social protection, with a focus on having more herders be covered by social protection schemes including social insurance, and reducing their vulnerabilities to poverty and extreme climate change.