The Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE) project in Mongolia is phasing out in 2018 and in the context of ensuring the sustainability and continuity of the initiated programme’s work in the country, a ‘PAGE WEEK’ made of technical and bilateral meetings was organised by national stakeholders in Ulaanbaatar from 13 to 16 March 2018, and brought together experts from United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the ILO and SWITCH Asia.
One of the highlights from the PAGE WEEK was a training and workshop on green jobs organized over two days (15 and 16 March 2018) with the objectives to introduce first the estimation methods of a core set of green development indicators alongside with the finding from the Pilot Study in the Environmental Sector and Green Jobs in Mongolia. It aimed to identify with the participants the way to make use of the results from the study and the green development indicators for policy and analysis.
Another highlight of the week was the discussion on the implementation of the National Green Development Policy, and especially how the results of the Green development indicators developed by the National Statistical Office (NSO) in collaboration with ILO will influence policy alignments from different ministries. The development and strengthening of green economy policies at sectoral level were also reviewed, especially in the sectors of construction, finance and waste management.
Finally the development of university courses on green economy, the greening of university campuses, and the recurrent training for government official were part of the agenda in the context of building national capacities to sustain policy analysis and implementation.
Cristina Martinez, Senior Environment and Decent Work Specialist of the ILO-ROAP & D. Oyunbileg, Senior Statistician, Economic Statistics Department, NSO PAGE has worked with Mongolian institutions and stakeholders since 2013 in response to challenges that urgently call for a Just Transition to an environmentally sustainable society. Cristina Martinez, Senior Environment and Decent Work Specialist of the ILO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (ROAP) notes that with coal available in abundance, and outdated technologies used for heat and electricity generation, Mongolia’s GHG emissions per capita are among the highest in Asia.
Around 85% of urban residents rely on coal and fire wood as sources of energy, which produces significant air pollution, which was declared a priority threat to the country’s development. Mongolia’s Nationally Determined Contributions outline a series of policies and measures that the country commits to implement by 2030; the intended mitigation impact goal is a 14% reduction in total national GHG emissions, with the construction and housing sector as one of the cores areas. However financing advanced energy technologies appears challenging due to their high cost, which results in obsolete technologies and techniques being used, combined with low energy efficiency and high energy losses.
