Mongolia 

As Mongolia works to strengthen early learning, we help families, teachers, authors, and government expand access to books and build lasting reading habits.

Mongolia’s urban smog has enormous economic and social costs. Our programming helps women entrepreneurs install energy systems that reduce pollution and energy costs and allow them to focus on growing their businesses.

We work with government, civil society, and the private sector to strengthen Mongolia’s efforts to prevent the trafficking of children, provide comprehensive, trauma-informed care for victims, and prosecute and convict traffickers.

For more than three decades, The Asia Foundation has partnered with Mongolia’s public institutions to strengthen governance, improve citizen participation, and modernize public services. Recent work with parliament and local government offices has introduced digital consultation tools, expanded citizen engagement, and strengthened institutional capacity for more transparent and responsive decision-making.

Women’s economic participation in Mongolia has been hindered by unequal access to finance, entrepreneurship support, and workplace opportunities. Between 2020 and 2024, TAF worked with government, financial institutions, civil society, and the private sector to strengthen the enabling environment for women’s economic leadership. The program contributed to national women’s and workplace policies, expanded financing for women’s businesses by encouraging banks to reform lending policies, strengthened women’s entrepreneurship legislation, and helped integrate data on women’s businesses into provincial competitiveness assessments, while building a coalition of 22 civil society organizations to advance long-term reform.

As Ulaanbaatar has grown rapidly, citizens have increasingly pushed for institutions to improve public services, strengthen accountability, and better engage with people. Over the past 15 years, The Asia Foundation has partnered with municipal offices to modernize urban governance through public service innovation, digital transformation, and evidence-based planning. The program trained more than 4,000 municipal officials, supported decentralization reforms, introduced digital platforms for citizen participation, and improved service delivery across areas including waste management, water utilities, and local government planning.

As Mongolia’s mining sector expanded, balancing economic growth with environmental protection became increasingly important. From 2010 through 2016, the Engaging Stakeholders in Environmental Conservation program strengthened environmental governance by bringing together government, mining companies, communities, and civil society to improve collaboration and promote responsible resource management. The program advanced community-based environmental monitoring, strengthened dialogue around responsible mining, and developed practical land rehabilitation approaches that continue to inform sustainable management of Mongolia’s natural resources.

From 1997 through 2017, Books for Asia expanded access to education and information across Mongolia by providing millions of books and educational resources to schools, universities, libraries, and community organizations. Beyond improving access to learning materials, the program helped strengthen English-language education, introduced digital learning resources, and laid the foundation for later initiatives promoting children’s literature, digital libraries, and lifelong learning throughout Mongolia.