A Horse, A Camel, or A Car

This past weekend we had some nice weather. It was still below freezing but it would have been perfect weather for skiing in Colorado. Sorry, no ski lifts in Monge aw eeeolia.
Three of us here in the office leased a car for the afternoon and went out to the suburbs or as it is frequently referred to here in Mongolia as the Perri-urban area of the city.
One picture is a downward shot of a Ger located inside its Hashaa. The Hashaa is the area allocated to the family for their area and they normally enclose it with a wood fence. The other picture shows the Hashaas next to one another out in the suburbs.
These Hashaas have no running water or sewer system, I might add, and there are thousands of them in the suburban area. In some of the Hashaas, the more affluent people live in there Ger or in an apartment in the city in the winter for warmth and then move into a small home on their property in the summer, when heating is not an issue.
There is bus service out into most of these areas but automobiles are very common in the city. When one moves further away from the city the little horse with the funny looking saddles becomes increasingly common. If one goes South towards the Gobi desert the camel is used by some for transportation. I liked this two humped camel and these are the type of camels they use here in Mongolia. I have not had the opportunity to see any camel hockey games or camel races but they are a special sport in this country. They say they are much easier to ride then the one hump camel.
I thought the horses were cute but the saddle looked very uncomfortable and the camel looked very ornery so for the time being, I think I will stick to the automobile and my walking boots.

Ghana!!! ....Ghana????

Ghana is just down the road and over the creek and then a few thousand more miles away from Mongolia. Judith Hermanson, the Vice President of CHF was going to be there for a ceremony but illness in the family prevented her from making the trip, so the assignment was tossed over into my basket. CHF has worked in over a hundred different countries during its 55 year history and is currently working in 35 Developing countries.
In Ghana, CHF is engaged in implementing the Slum Communities Achieving Livable Environments with Urban Partners (Scale-Up)in conjunction with the Gates Foundation. This program provides targeted capacity building for local intermediaries. It is a program that seeks to empower the poor and give them a voice in the decisions that are made that influence their communities. CHF is providing resources to seven different community non-profit groups in Ghana in this effort to promote the Urban Agenda at all levels of decision making.
This young man, Habubakari, works as a program officer for Peoples Dialogue of Ghana, one of the seven local non-profits. Beside him is an elected official, equivalent to a County commissioner in the U.S. The Scale-UP program tries to bring every segment of the community into the dialogue.


Staff took me into the bowels of the slums and they were worse than anything I had seen in Haiti or South Africa. I had my camera in my hand but out of respect for the people, I could not bring myself to even sneak a picture.

The community ceremony was held at the outside edge of the slum where people had better living conditions, even if they were incredibly over crowded.
On a more upbeat note, the CHF staff of Ghana are a great group of folk and the ceremony came off without a hitch. The Corporate staff gathered for a group photo here on the right and on the left are four full time CHF staff. On the left is Sandrine Capelle-Manuel, who is the Country Director. Then next to her is Mathew Chandy, the Country director from India, where they are also working the Scale-UP program. Then you have Brian English, who is the Director for these two Scale-UP programs and works out of the Silver Springs office, and on the right is Ranjit Ambastha, a senior program director for India. These four have been working together for some time getting these programs going in Ghana and India.



CHF is addressing in many ways the same problem in both Mongolia and Ghana. The problem is the vast number of people moving from the rural into the Urban areas and their are no jobs. The program in each of the two countries is financed in different ways and the approach to the problem is radically different but the core problem is the same.
The problem CHF is addressing one way or the other in so many countries is an exploding urban population with no means of economic support. You have an increasingly massive number of people with a minimum, if any means of financial support moving into the urban areas. There are lots of people but there are very few jobs. This problem has been growing for years and will continue to grow even after the global economic crisis is resolved. The challenge to those concerned about the humanitarian needs of the poor is staggering.

LEAVING MONGOLIA

It was the last Saturday of March and I was wide awake before sun up. It was the 28th of March and I had a ticket to Ghana that afternoon. There was still some time sheets and work to do at the office before I finished packing so I decided to go over early and take care of the office stuff. It was a typical cold Mongolian morning but the wind was not blowing and the snow was coming down ever so gently. You could smell the coal being burned in the small stoves in the center of the Gers in Ulaanbaatar and I knew I was really going to miss being with the people I had enjoyed working with so much over the past three months.



Friday evening had been a lot of fun with the Development Solutions staff and their boss Serjmaa having a party for me in their new office and giving me a special Mongolian gift that I shall always treasure.

CHF had a 6 o'clock party and a few more gifts and lots of fun. Then Glenn and Brian, on their own nickel, took all of the staff of both groups out for dinner and drinks. In Mongolia you will find no CHF parties starting before 6 and you will find no CHF money being spent for party time, but the staff along with Glenn and Brian do have a lot of fun, even in the midst of major transitions in program as they go from USAID to USAG funding and the funding has very different expectations for services to be delivered to the Ger community.



One could say this group knew how to work hard and party hard but in the three months I spent in Mongolia, I never saw anyone of the staff get out of control with the partying. The staff are very competitive so when it comes to volleyball, basketball, and ping pong, the competitive spirit comes very close to getting out of control.

"The mission of CHF and the new non profit, Development Solutions, that has been spun off of CHF, are involved in very important work in this country. Less than 20 years ago, it was a part of the Soviet Union and sits right between the worlds two largest communist countries. It is a new Democracy rushing into an Urban environment and out of its Nomadic culture of herders raising their sheep and goats on the open range of Mongolia. Transition into Democracy and Capitalism have brought widespread joblessness and other social issues but the people are totally committed to making it work, so it is great the U.S. and CHF are doing what can be done to make it happen.

I am very grateful for the opportunity to get to know the wonderful people of Mongolia and to see up close and personal the terrific work CHF is doing in working with people in a country experiencing enormous social and economic transition in a very challenging and fragile environment.
I will miss a great deal the staff of Development Solutions and CHF in Mongolia and will always be appreciative of the energies of Barbara at CHF headquarters for facilitating the experience and to Mike for allowing it to happen.

Mongolia Has Been Great

I have really enjoyed getting to know the two ex pats and all of the Mongolian here at CHF Mongolia as I have worked with them for three months. We enjoyed some good times last night but my camera does not want to transfer any of the pictures this morning so maybe later.

My trip here in Mongolia has been cut short by about three days in order for me to make a meeting in Ghana on Monday morning. There have been some scheduling problems for some of the CHF staff from Washington who were planning on attending the meeting so I am leaving in about two hours for Ghana for about four days.

CHF has been working there for a few years with the Gates Foundation so it will be an interesting meeting. Maybe my camera will be happy when it is in warm weather. Today it is snowing here in Mongolia......I wonder if it is snowing in Ghana????Just kidding....It is supposed to be 33 degree Celsius.

More about winding down in Mongolia when my camera is in a better mood.

Development Solutions Board Meeting

The Board of Directors of Development Solutions enjoyed a productive meeting on Thursday with the able guidance of Serjmaa, the new CEO of this non-profit organization. It was a two hour meeting and all items on the agenda were approved including The Business Plan presented to the Board by the Chair person of that committee. In the two pictures below you see Serjmaa and her staff on the left and four of the five Board members on the right. This was a special meeting for this new Board. The CHF staff have been working and planning for years for this spin off to the local Mongolian NGO and it finally happened.


Serjmaa and Bagana, the Program Director, have been working their way up the ladder of Development Solutions for about five years and now have the responsibility of supervising over 70 staff members located in 11 Branch offices in different parts of the country and the responsibility of a half million dollar budget, thanks to CHF, the US Dept.of Agriculture and USAID. Serjmaa, in addition to her other responsibilities as a CEO, had been working for two months with different Board members and Committee Chair persons in preparation for this meeting. It all paid off as everything was approved that was on the agenda and the meeting went smoothly.
You see here a picture of Serjmaa and Bagana congratulating one another after the meeting and then a picture of me congratulating them on a job well done.

Now all they have to do is keep 49 Business Advisers trained and being effective as they help micro and small businesses located in many parts of Mongolia become successful, during a global recession. Also in the process they will be shifting the focus of the Business Advisers to Agricultural clients now that funding is shifting from USAID to USAG.
They are very capable and committed staff and have a great support team working with them as they take on this challenging task. They also have the very competent, caring and committed staff of CHF Mongolia to help guide them through any rough spots they might encounter in this transition.

A View From Zaysan Tolgov

This weekend, I went up to the top of Russian Hill, as some call it. A small mountain just to the South of the city that has a large monument built by Russians before they left town called Zaysan Tolgov Memorial. It provides a great view of the city and the surrounding suburbs or Ger Communities, as they are referred to here in Ulaanbaatar. There is also a view of the railroad running down by the river.
The Mongolians think of America as their third neighbor. They have Russia to the West and North and they have China to the East and South. They still refer to America as their third neighbor and the language people prefer to learn by far is the English language.

Many countries continue to contribute to the growth and development of Mongolia and America is only one of many. I find it interesting that America through its Millenium Challenge program, created by Bush, is doing several things including health care assistance, vocational training and Perri-urban land entitlement programs. The largest part of the grant however is to upgrade the Trans Siberian Railroad. This is the major connection between Russia and China. Mongolia is rich in mineral resources and the only way you can really move things like coal, uranium, copper, gold and other minerals is with the use of the railroad.
Mongolia is very financially dependent on its mineral resources to underwrite its budget. However, it does not have the capital to develop the mines required to extract these minerals so they contract with companies from other countries like Russia to do this work. International Development work sure takes some interesting twists and turns.


Here are two snapshots of the city from Zaysan Tolgoy. The city of one and a half million people sits in a valley along side a small river and the railroad. The city extends upon to the hills in nearly every direction with uncontrolled suburban sprawl with no sewers or city water up in those areas.
I wanted to take the train back to China but it is a four day trip on a very slow train.
Friday, I was invited by a leader of a weekend program on Corporate Governance for Executives of larger Mongolian companies. I spoke for a short time about different aspects of working with a Board of Directors. One of the other guest speakers was a gentleman from Russia who was an expert on Corporate Governance. It was a good program. I have these fellows cards and thought maybe I should send them to Obama. Maybe he could hire this Russian and this Mongolian to go teach a course on Responsible Corporate Governance to our friends on Wall Street.

International Women's Day- March 8th

The United Nations established International Women's Day as an international holiday in its first Charter. Russia began the recognition in 1920. It is highly celebrated in many countries and especially those that have at one time or the other been a part of the Soviet Union. Everyplace I have gone for the last few days, they have been selling roses. The fellows in the CHF office here on the 6th floor and the fellows in the Development Solutions office on the third floor each had special celebrations for the women with whom they worked and I am sure the celebration were even more extravagant in their homes.
When Russia was dominant in Mongolia, it required 40% of the parliament to be women and now there is less than half of that number. When Russia was in charge their was universal education and literacy was higher then it is at this time. No one is wanting the Russians to return but one of the two major parties in Mongolia is MPRP, the communist party. It was the party when Russia pulled out but there is now another party the Democratic Union Party that gives the MPRP a run for their money at each election to see who can get the most members in the parliament, the Khural.
There has been almost no new infrastructure built in the cities since the Russians left. Most of the old 5 and 9 story apartment building built by the Russians are still occupied and are the primary living quarters of a vast majority of the city residents. There are a lot of new conventionally financed apartment structures being built but I have no idea how most Mongolians will be able to afford to move into them with the income structure here in Mongolia, where a waitress might make an equivalent to 150 dollars a month and I repeat, a month and teachers two to three times that amount.
But it was fun celebrating with the staff on International Women's Day.




Some of the fellows on the 6th floor had been preparing in secret for the Women's Day celebration at the end of the work day on Friday. A couple of them had asked me if I wanted to share in the event on Friday, so I tossed in my 8,500 Tugrugs, or about US $7.00 or less. CHF does not have funds for the parties. These are financed by staff contributions. There was cake, wine, candy and a rose for each one of the ladies. The guys suggested all of us men wear white shirts and black trousers, the uniform of the waiters in Mongolia. One picture shows us toasting the women and the other picture, if you will click on it and make it full page size, will show you how much fun they had with the party. The festivities lasted for only an hours and there was very little drinking but an enormous amount of laughter.




Development Solutions, the new NGO that has its offices on the third floor, pulled together a special celebration on Women's Day in their office with a little glass of wine and flowers at about 7 on Friday evening, then the fellows in that office took all of the ladies out to dinner. The pictures are of Serjmaa, the new CEO of Development Solutions and some of her Administrative and Finance Department staff.




The CHF team on the 6th floor enjoyed cake, and a beautiful cake it was, for desert at lunch in the accounting office as part of their Women's Day celebration. When the cake feast luncheon was over, I caught a picture of Oyunbayar Tserendorj, one of CHF's accountants going over some numbers with Jennifer Quellette, who has come out from Washington CHF office to do a final report on the Ger Initiative program.