This interactive platform now provides an opportunity for the Mongolian artisanal miners to connect with their global partners and to exchange information and seek solutions to their common issues. It will also serve as an eLearning module which provides number of "how-to" tools on ASM specific issues.
On 1 March 2018, the Sustainable Artisanal Mining (SAM) Project of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in Mongolia, initiator of this web-platform, officially launched the ASM Knowledge Hub and handed it over to the Ministry of Mining and Heavy Industry (MMHI). The ministry will be responsible for management and maintenance of the platform in future.
"The ASM Knowledge Hub Platform can make the Mongolian experience visible abroad and bring to Mongolia lessons learned and examples from abroad. As the SAM Project is ending in 2019, the Knowledge Hub must find a permanent home. We thank the MMHI for accepting the challenge and the responsibility for its further existence, with the support and contribution of all the stakeholders of this project," said Ilaria Dali, SDC Deputy Director of Cooperation in Mongolia.
In his opening remarks at the hand-over ceremony, the MMHI State Secretary G. Nandinjargal highlighted the creation of a more favourable legal and regulatory environment for the ASM sector in Mongolia since 2010.
"The legal acts and other ASM related data can now be accessed from the ASM Knowledge Hub Platform," said G.Nandinjargal, the MMHI State Secretary. "The further success of the ASM Knowledge Hub Platform development will depend on contributions from all organizations, researchers and individuals related to the artisanal and small-scale mining."
The platform will feature latest news and updates in ASM sector, and provide information on upcoming events regarding the sector. Moreover, it will be main point of storage and dissemination of various articles, studies, researches and publications produced by ASM stakeholders in different ASM topics.
The Knowledge Hub features real-time information service such as an online chatting system and hotline service "1900-2959" offered by the Mongolian ASM National Federation.
Datacom, a leading Mongolian IT company, was the technical partner for the development of the web-platform.
