AKIPRESS.COM - A new job creation project entitled "Support to employment creation in Mongolia: Piloting quality private sector work in selected livestock and vegetable value chains" has been launched today by the Government of Mongolia and the European Union, reports GoGo Mongolia.

The project, with a budget of EUR 4.15 million (MNT 9.48 billion) will run between 2016 and 2019 and will be implemented by the UN agencies - Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). The Ministry of Food and Agriculture of Mongolia is the main counterpart for this project which will further strengthen other EU-funded projects: Mongolia’s Technical and Vocational Education and Training Sector and the Modernization of Mongolia’s Standardization System.

The project will focus on decent employment creation through improving competitiveness and greening of meat, dairy, vegetable, fibres and leather sectors. A key tool for assessing these sectors will be value chain analysis, including supply chain and economic analysis, to identify and unblock key bottlenecks. Value chain analysis under the project will include assessments of chain actors and their relationships, current technological gaps, job conditions, human resource capacity, policies, international competitiveness and other aspects. Each commodity has a production phase, marketing phase and “bit in the middle” for storage, transport, processing, packaging and other commodity specific actions which correspond to various actors in the chains.

The project goal is to create over 3,000 new job positions at city, aimag, soum and herder/farm/ household level, including youth and women and aims to contribute to inclusive and sustainable development in Mongolia through the promotion of quality employment focusing on the livestock and agriculture sector and to strengthen conditions and capacity of private sector employment. The SECiM action will be pivotal in promoting expanded production of quality products while safeguarding decent employment based on inclusive economic, social and eco-friendly value chain models.

The agriculture and food sectors are hugely important to the economy as well as the social make-up and ecology of Mongolia. Agriculture employs 35 percent of the total labor force and more importantly, it accounts for over 70 percent of employment in rural areas. The livestock sub-sector accounts for almost 10 percent of export earnings and approximately 80 percent of total agricultural production. The agriculture and food sectors offer the best opportunity to grow inclusive employment. Agriculture is expected to create the newest jobs until 2022.