Tuya, Director of Kindergarten No. 9 of Ulaangom soum, Uvs Province: We are overly excited that today our children can study and play in a warm kindergarten. As a result of raising our voices, we were able to include heating costs of 226,378,400 MNT (64,174 USD) in the Uvs Province budget for 2023. As you can imagine, this is a huge contribution to reducing our budget – money we can invest now in other important things. In the past, due to poor construction quality, we had heating loss through the windows and the surrounding walls. Up to 280 children study here, and the heat loss has adversely affected the health of teachers and children, who constantly suffer from colds and flu. Although the parents were well aware of this situation and complained about it, they weren’t able to band together to find an optimal way to solve the problem.
In November 2022, I read about a project that was trying to incorporate citizens' comments into the local budget approval process. A booklet called “Citizens’ Budget” was issued by the governor’s office, which was published in an easy-to-read and understandable format with support from the Mainstreaming Social Accountability for Improved Transparency and Participation in Mongolia (MASAM II) project.
After reviewing the booklet, I saw the budget for Uvs Province and the investments planned for the upcoming year. It was then that I decided to share the booklet with my teammates during a kindergarten meeting, as I was convinced that having budget information and a timetable was essential for planning our strategy. Then, we decided to involve the parents so everyone could provide comments to solve the most pressing problem in the kindergarten. All the teachers encouraged parents by distributing links to the poll and a digital version of the booklet through their social media networks. Since the parents were aware of the building’s heating loss, all of them very actively participated in the process. They understood that active participation from everyone was the key to getting support for our proposal.
A budget transparency workshop was conducted in Ulaangom on November 28, 2022, to listen to citizens’ voices. During this workshop, Province Governor Ch. Chimed presented operations reports for 2020-2022 and got citizens’ comments and feedback. In the past, the local government had never received citizens’ feedback in such ways – online and in person – when discussing the budget. We welcomed the opportunity to vote on the budget and participated in the discussion with the parents’ representatives to present the building’s issues to leaders and express our desire to solve them.
Local television did a live broadcast of the citizens' representatives meeting of Uvs Province to discuss the local budget, and we all listened attentively to the meeting’s proceedings. The Head of the Province Finance and Treasury Department presented the results of the proposals submitted by citizens. It announced that our kindergarten’s heating issue ranked first in the poll. We heard the good news that all the representatives agreed to support the proposal, and funds for the kindergarten’s repairs were included in the 2023 budget. Soon, the renovation activity will begin after the kindergarten’s summer break starts. We will welcome our children to a comfortable and warm place for the new school year in the fall.
I call on all citizens and the public to be active and responsible, to raise their voices, comment on projects implemented with state funds, and work together for our country’s development.
We would also like to express our deep gratitude to the MASAM II project supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, GPSA, and the Ministry of Finance for providing us with this opportunity.
For more information, please visit MASAM project website.
