ULAANBAATAR: The World Bank announced a new agreement with Mongolia, provides $22.7 million for the third phase of a project supporting the country’s effort to empower rural communities in a more diversified and modern economy.
The Third Sustainable Livelihoods Project (SLP III) will help Mongolia further implement the Integrated Budget Law of 2011 that gave rural communities a greater role in the government-funding process. SLP III also supports local economic development through the “Soum Program” that promotes investments for private sector growth in the more than 300 soums – or local administrative districts – throughout the country.
- Erdenebat, Mongolia’s Minister of Finance, signed the credit agreement today with Bert Hofman, the World Bank’s Country Director for China, Korea and Mongolia. Since its inception in 2002, the three-phase Sustainable Livelihoods Program has backed efforts by the Mongolian government and the international community to modernize a mostly rural and under-developed economy.
Hofman said, “The adoption of the Integrated Budget Law was a major milestone for empowering rural communities and provides a transparent mechanism for fiscal transfers for local development. With this in place, the SLP III project will build the capacity of local governments and communities to manage local development initiatives.”
