Emergency Response & Recovery

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In Mongolia, steppe fires are escalating yearly, destroying herders’ pastures and livestock, and causing significant livelihood losses. Drought and global warming are intensifying fire frequency. According to the 2023 Wildfire Incident Report by Mongolia’s National Emergency Management Agency, over 130 fires burned 2.4 million hectares, impacting 230,000 people, primarily herders, leading to displacement and economic crises. The limited resources of sparsely settled households in soums to promptly extinguish fires or respond swiftly are a key factor in fire spread. The “Mongolia Anticipation of Steppe Fire” project aims to prevent fires, boost community engagement, strengthen local capacity, and protect herders’ sustainable livelihoods.

The REACH project is a humanitarian initiative to address the critical needs of isolated herder families and their children in Bayan-Ulgii and Khovd provinces of Mongolia, severely affected by the 2024 Dzud. Implemented by People in Need International Non-Governmental Organization (PIN INGO) in collaboration with the Child and Family Development and Protection Department of the target provinces, the project focuses on improving health, education, and child protection for families in the most remote and vulnerable soums of these provinces.

REACH Project overview

 

At the beginning of January 2020, reports on a novel coronavirus (COVID19) in Wuhan, China. Because of the country’s close proximity to China, the Deputy Prime Minister passed a resolution which considers Mongolia to be at high risk of coronavirus spread from its southern neighbor, China. The Prime Minister and Government of Mongolia moved to implement preventative safety measures against the spread of coronavirus. From February until November, the measures taken prevented the community transmission of COVID19. However, there were enormous socio-economic consequences – spikes in reported cases of domestic violence, increases in unemployment, hundreds of thousands of children kept from school. So whilst the COVID19 preventative measures kept the population safe, widening inequality left at risk populations extremely vulnerable. As a result, vulnerable populations are facing a dire reality as there’s little opportunity to earn an income and put food on their table. Additionally, the Government of Mongolia has reached out to PIN as they identified more than 20,000 households in need of immediate support.

Therefore, PIN in partnership with the Government of Mongolia, SDC, German Embassy, and Friends of Mongolia came up with an emergency response programme with the goal to support the Government of Mongolia in providing aid to the most vulnerable populations impacted by the COVID19. The immediate relief was provided in the form of food and basic essential vouchers to 2,800 child-headed households, single mothers, dormitory students, and other vulnerable families and communities, particularly people living with disabilities and families reliant on 24hr kindergartens.

The project relieves some of the finacial burden place on families, especially on women, by providing free meals to their children while schools are closed. The project´s aim is also to demonstrate that school nutrition programmes can and should continue, even during a disaster. PIN is working closely with the Minstry of Education to develop a pilot project, with the funding from the German Embassy, that would essentially create a framework to allow children to pick-up food from their school cafeterias while the schools are shut down due to COVID19.

As an immediate aid, the comprehensive kit was provided to support children’s nutrition, hygiene, and education during the months of school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our response is aimed at reducing the burden on vulnerable families and improving the nutrition, hygiene, and education of the children. The purpose of the hygiene kits is to provide items to help the target kindergarten children and their families through information and materials necessary to protect themselves. 

Volunteers instructed families on how they can protect themselves, using the items in the hygiene kit, from infectious diseases, such as COVID-19. Using the handouts provided by UNICEF/MoH. And providing them nutrition kits and education kits. The aim is to give children the tools they need to continue cognitive development while out of school.

The "Clean Hands" campaign was supported by
Swiss Cooperation in Mongolia, Breathe Mongolia - Clean Air Coalition, Namuun Children's Foundation / Намуун Хүүхдийн Сан, Mongolian Red Cross Society and donors across the CzechRepublic, EU, Mongolia, and the USA.

People in Need helped 415 households (1,478 individuals) through the provision of animal feed kits and 444 households (1,529 individuals) through unconditional cash transfer programming. Across 11 soums of Sukhbaatar and 1 soum of Dornod province facing a dzud situation, People in Need applied a vulnerability index to target households most in need and dependent on livestock for their livelihood. The index was based on the size of their herd (under 200 SFU with a weight assigned to smaller herd sizes) and household level vulnerability criteria such as pregnant or lactating women, single-headed households with two or more children, disabled people, elderly people with no working-age adults, and large families.

Animal feed packages

Depending on the herd size, each household received a tailored amount of concentrated animal feed and two packages of micronutrient and vitamin supplement.
The amount of animal feed provided aimed to support the livestock for one month.

Unconditional cash grants

Every household that received animal feed and additional households who had no animals at the time of response but is dependent on herding for their livelihood received an unconditional cash grant to support their early recovery and household basic needs. The amount of the cash grants provided was based on the number of household members. A family of 1-2 persons received 1,038 CZK (50 USD), a family with 3-5 members received 2,076 CZK (100 USD) and a family of 6 or more members received 3,114 CZK (150 USD). People in need provided Cash assistance via bank transfers and cheques.

 

Mongolia is still affected by the harsh winter after the dzud of 2015-2016 which killed 1.2 million livestock and left tens of thousands of herders in poverty. Within the context of the current crisis, two areas of increased needs have emerged as time critical. First is potential
starvation of herder households’ primary asset – goats, sheep, horses, cattle, camels and yaks. As result of long-term cold stress and starvation which started from the beginning of November, the livestock health status has been gradually deteriorating and a breakdown of immune system, it is expected that may eventually can lead to high mortality rate. In addition to high potential livestock mortality, herders will suffer from severe income declines due to declined animal productivity associated with poor animal conditions, decreased reproduction performance like miscarriages and infertilities. Together, these threaten to collapse livelihoods and add to high indebtedness of herder households. Lack of assets results in low purchasing power for fuel, non-meat food, medical services and school fees. The impact at the household level is basic survival. 

As part of the CERF funded project, PIN had ensured distribution of livestock emergency packages to CERF intervention targeted 86 beneficiary herder households in Bulgan, Dashbalbar and Khulunbuir soums of Dornod aimag.

On the basis of the evaluation of the needs of herder families hit by the 2016-2017 dzud, in collaboration with international organizations including the UN, we have identified two basic needs of the stricken households. The first is access to basic daily consumption needs such as food, winter clothing, medicines, heating fuels, and finances for buying telephone credit or costs of travel to the regional centers.

The second is access to food for cattle which is the only source of income for herder families. If they were to lose their herd or their numbers were to fall significantly in consequence of the dzud, the household in question would be left completely without livelihood and have to resort to negative survival strategies, such as reducing the number of daily meals, debts, hired work for richer herders contributing an absolute minimum towards the survival of the family, taking their children out of school, migration to towns etc.
 

People in Need has successfully managed to raise funds from ECHO under their Small Scale Response program to alleviate the effects of the dzud on 2450 Households in the 4 Eastern Provinces of Mongolia. Between February and June 2016, in collaboration with Charita ČR, the Mongolian National Emergency Management Agency and the Mongolian Red Cross, People in Need provided the support under the form of mainly food kits distribution and, for the most vulnerable families, under an additional Unconditional Cash Transfer program.

PIN continues to work with the families of herders on increasing their resilience against future dzuds. In collaboration with the Italian non-profit organisation ASIA Onlus with the support of the Waldensian Evangelical Church, PIN also encourages mutual solidarity between the wealthier and more vulnerable herder families.  

In the winter of 2009-2010, Mongolia was hit by severe frosts (called dzud). Due to that, more than 8 million livestock have died, about 18 percent of Mongolia's total number of animals before dzud. Mongolia has issued a Humanitarian Consolidated Appeal Proposal but Humanitarian aid did not cover all affected districts and families.

The main concern of those who have none cattle or some cattle left is to prepare for winter and potential dzud. The needs of those who have lost all their cattle are different: provision of food for the winter, clothing, cattle, fuel. PIN supported affected families in 2 districts of the Khenti region according to how they were affected.