Materials : Country/Review Paper
COUNTRY PAPER : MONGOLIA
Country report on Implementation Activities of
“Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons, 2003-2012” programme
and Biwako Millennium Framework in Mongolia
Prepared by:
M.Baljmaa, officer, MoSWL of Mongolia
The Government of Mongolia places a high priority on the implementation
of the “Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons, 2003-2012” programme
and Biwako Millennium Framework on promoting an inclusive, barrier-free, and
right based society for people with disabilities that adopted by ESCAP
resolution 58/4 of 22 May 2002.
In accordance with the principles of the Biwako Millennium Framework, the
Mongolian Government implements below mentioned activities. These are:
A/ Self-help organisation of persons with disabilities person and related
family and parental associations:
In Mongolia, it is fully allowed that persons with disabilities to join
and form associations according to the Mongolian Constitution and other
related laws.
For example, In the Law on Social Security of people with disablities,
there is a provision that allows forming Non Governmental Organisations’
which represent interests of people with disabilities.
Currently, there are 60 NGO’s that represent interests of people with
disabilities in Mongolia. In order to create a central administration body
of those NGO’s, National Association of Mongolian Disabled Citizen’s
Organisation was established in 1997.
The Government of Mongolia promotes the activities of the NGO’s of the
people with disabilities by funding relevant cost of those activities and
cooperates with NGO’s namely, National Association of Mongolian Disabled
Citizen’s Organisations and the Mongolian Association of the Blind on
cotractual basis.
The National Association of Mongolian Disabled Citizen’s Organisations
cooperates with goverment institutions namely, Ministry of Social Welfare
and Labour, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Finance and Economy, as well
as it cooperates with NGO’s with similar activities of foreign countries
such as Japan, People’s Republic of China, Republic of Korea and Russian
Federation.
The Government supports the idea of establishing self help
organisations of the people with disabilities. There is a special factory of
the people with disability operates under name of “Labour and Training
Factory of the Blind”.
Currently, the factory has more than 100 employees and 80 per cent of them
are blind and the rest are able bodied people working in positions of
management and administration.
In order to protect and develop children with disabilities as active
citizens of the society through improving participation of parents, the
family and parental associations have established and their activities are
widening in the local level in Mongolia. The high level conference of these
associations held in 2003 and planned the further activities of the
association. Furthermore, the association cooperates with British “Save the
Children Fund”, European TACIS programme and implements projects on capacity
development, training and the parents awareness.
Project of 40 thousands of USD, on “Employment promotion of the people
with disabilities” implements to promoting capacity building of the NGO’s of
the people with disabilities and widening activities for the members.
B/. Women with disabilities:
50.5 percent of Mongolian population is women and their representation in
the society is relatively high. As of education, 88.5 percent of women aged
10 years old and above is educated, 7.7 percent of which with higher
education, 9.4 percent with technical and college education, 48.3 percent
with vocational and complete secondary education and 23.1 percent of which
with primary education.
Our
country has more than 50 NGOs, operating to protect rights of women,
including the Association of women with disability aimed at protecting
rights of women with disability.
The
Association has started its activities since 1995. Except for protecting
rights of the women with disability, it is a NGO with social services status
and no membership.
The
Association provides community based rehabilitation services for the women
with disability and conducts IEC activities on life and culture of the women
with disability. Besides, it organizes field training and workshops for
rural women with disability.
The
Japanese Embassy in Mongolia has been supporting activities of the
Association of women with disability and financed a project of 17.2
thousands of USD from the Grass root programme.
C/. Early detection and early intervention activities and education
According to the Constitution, all citizens of Mongolia are
entitled to free access to secondary and complete secondary education.
The
literacy rate of Mongolian population aged 15 and above is 97.8 percent
and 47.8 percent of total population aged 7-29 is studying to attain
education.
We are
aiming to provide children with disability with opportunities to study or to
work with healthy children, by ensuring integrated training for both people
with disability and healthy children in ordinary secondary schools and
pre-school educational institutions. The implementation of issues regarding
education and qualification of children with disability falls under state
policy framework. Currently, a National center of rehabilitation and
vocational training for the disabled and 6 special secondary schools for
people with disability and mentally handicapped children are operating. In
academic year 2004-2005 the special school for blind children has opened.
In the
past few years, the National center of rehabilitation and vocational
training for the people with disability has been giving more than 100
citizens with disabilities 7-8 kinds of qualification yearly and 78 percent
of the graduates were provided employment by establishing contracts with
industries and business entities.
D/. Training and employment and including self-employment:
According to the regulations on implementation of relevant provisions of
Labour law on employment of disabled and dwarf people, the Central
employment office, in collaboration with the employment offices of
provinces, the capital city and districts, has conducted inspection of 647
entities with more than 50 employees.
In the
process of the inspection, some entities and organizations were revealed
that they have not employed the appropriate number of disabled or dwarf
people and were fined by 1.3 million tugrugs. The amount goes to the
“Development fund of disabled and dwarf people” and as of first half of
2004, 4.7 million tugrugs were accumulated in the fund.
NGO,
named “Liberal trade union coalition of disabled and dwarf citizens” has
established Employment mediating office and helped 150 persons to find jobs,
on subcontract basis with the Central employment office.
With
financial support of the Employment promotion fund, the National center of
rehabilitation and vocational training for the people with disability covers
20 disabled citizens in vocational training of sewing and baking yearly and
provides them with work places.
Asian
development bank, with grant assistance of 1 million US dollars of the
Japanese Poverty Reduction Fund, started to implement a 3 years project
aimed at promoting employment of the people with disability. It is estimated
that 4000 disabled citizens with ability to work will benefit from the
project in direct or indirect way.
Activities of the project include increasing skills of the people with
disability with ability to work, supporting the people with disability to
run a business, creating employment opportunity for the people with
disability in the labour market and in the special work places for them and
conducting IEC activities on livelihood, employment and skills and
qualifications of the people with disability.
E/. Access to built environment and public transport:
In accordance with the Mongolian laws people with disabilities are
entitled to free access to public transport.
Creating infrastructure for the people with disabilities is still in its
immature stage in Mongolia. However, in the frame of activities of the
decade, measures were undertaken to enable the people with wheelchair to
enter to some organizations without someone’s support, including MoSWL,
State social welfare office, 29 th secondary school, which is recognized as
a Special training center for the people with disabilities, and
Labour-Training center for the blind, by establishing special paths,
entrances or stages for the people with disabilities with wheelchair and
special path for the blind.
In order to improve accessibility of the persons with disabilities to the
built environments, “Accessablity Standards for the persons with
disabilities” has been developed recently. The Standards will help to create
favourable environment for the persons with disablities to participate as an
active part of the community in the area of employment, education, and
information.
The Ministry of Infractructure has been working on reflecting the
accessability needs of the persons with disabilities in the infractucture
development plan and give chance to them to participate in public housing
scheme to get new apartments.
F/. Access to information and communications, including
information, communication and assistive technologies:
The association of Blinds owns FM radio station line to provide
information to the blind people for promoting their active participation in
social life and increasing public awareness regarding the person with
disabilities.
A library for blind was opened with financial assistance of the project
on “Employment Promotion of people with disabilities”. The library is
equipped with special computers, printers, Braille books and other special
tools for blinds. Also the project supports Mongolian Association of
Blinds’ activities by providing special techniques and equipments and
technical assistance to organizing sign training for the parents who have
children with disabilities.
The project on “Employment Promotion of people with disabilities” also
supports National Rehabilitation and Vocational Training center for the
People with disabilities by providing computers and equipments for
renovation of the computer teaching cabinet.
G/. Poverty alleviation through capacity building, social security and
sustainable livelihood programmes:
State policy on social security of the people with disability regulated
by the Package law on social insurance, Law on health insurance of citizen,
Law on social welfare, Law on social security of the people with disability,
the “National programme on advancement of livelihood of the people with
disability” approved by the Government in 1998 and relevant rules and
regulations.
The
relevant costs required for implementation of legal acts and programmes on
people with disability are reflected in the state budget of the country
annually.
Pensions and state assistances for the people with disabilities are not
sufficient for their living and quite low compare to price growth and
inflation rate. Therefore, the Ministry is aiming at increasing pensions and
benefits of the people with disability and supporting their other income
generating activities.
In comparison to at the end of 2000, the average pension from the social
insurance fund has increased by 85 percent in 2004 respectively and the
Government of Mongolia spends 16.9 million tugrugs from social insurance
fund annually for the pension of 47056 persons with disabilities.
Social welfare pension has increased by 44 percent and the government
spends additional 252.0 million tugrugs for 28748 persons with disabilities.
The policy trends of the government on poverty reduction of the people
with disability are to promote active involvement of the people with
disability in social life, support their employment through provision with
work places and encourage them to independent living in society and
community.
REVIEW OF SHORTCOMINGS IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE BMF IN MONGOLIA:
A National Committee for Coordinating Activities that planned in the
frame of the Asian and Pacific Decades of the People with Disabilities was
re-established by the Resolution of the Prime Minister. The National
Committee has 19 members who represent Ministeries, relevant agencies
and NGO’s of the people with disabilities.
The National Committee is facing some challenges, namely:
- Due to the lack of financial resources
from the state budget, the planned activities of the National
Committee are postponed or cancelled.
- There is no permanent full time staff in
the National Committee thus the activities become not active.
- There is no supportive social and
psychological environment to understanding people with disabilities.
- Lack of appropriate information and
statistics on disability, there is difficulty in planning process.
Due to severity of socio-economic condition of the country, issues that
have difficulties in implementation process:
- Although NGO’s are undertaking various
explicit measures on protecting interests of the disabilities but there are
financial and human resource restrictions to solve problems of the persons
with disabilities.
- Pensions and state assistances for the
people with disabilities are not sufficient for their living
- Due to low employment availabilities,
persons with disabilities are generally vulnerable for poverty.
- There is a lack of accessibility in
education, vocational training in the rural area.
- There is no appropriate infrastructure
for the persons with disabilities.
- There is no appropriate incentive
mechanism for employers and business entities that assist them to help and
support persons with disabilities.
- Due to poor infrastructure to access
public services and information sharing mechanism for the persons with
disabilities, the participation of the persons with disabilities in
socio-economic life is relatively low in rural area.
Further plans on the BMF implementation of Mongolia for the rest of the Decade:
A/. Indicators for monitoring the implementation progress:
- The activities of the National Committee
should be a regular.
- Implementation of the planned activities
- Evaluation and assessment should be given
for the National Committee
- The level of infrastructure that
establishing special passages, sighs and stages to facilitate traveling of
the people with disabilities to public services.
- Measures that have been taken
for promoting income generation activities and improving social welfare
services for people with disabilities.
- The employment situation of
the persons with disabilities
- The accessibilities of
education and vocational training for the persons with disabilities.
- The poverty reduction
measures among persons with disabilities
B/. Institutional mechanisms for monitoring the implementation issues:
- To organize activities that support
people with disabilities and create supportive social and
psychological environment for them.
- To organize activities to strengthen the
capacity of NGOs’ which represent interests of people with
disabilities.
- To establish an reliable information
system on disabilities in nationwide.
C/. Capacity building and technical cooperation issues:
- To support the National
Committee by allocating state budget annually for the planned activities.
- To find other financial
resources for the activities of the National Committee.
- To establish special fund for
the people with disabilities and NGOs’ that protect their interests.
- To employ a permanent full
time staff who is responsible for day to day activities of the National
Committee.
- To implement programmes and project for
improving livelihood of the people with disabilities.
D/. A rights-based comprehensive national policy issue:
- The Laws and relevant
regulations on social security, social welfare and employment of the people
with disabilities should be revised and improved.
- To promote active
participation of the people with disabilities in social life through
supporting their organisations such as NGO’s.
- To cooperate with government
and NGO’s with similar activities of foreign countries and implement
programmes and project for improving livelihood of the people with
disabilities.
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