Digital Reach

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Monitoring, the Poverty Research Unit of the Ministry of Finance

and a volunteer working group for risk study (RSWG) have been

conducting a series of disaster risk case studies with both profes-

sional and participatory approaches. This has resulted in the

development of a ‘risk manager’ information system with the

following components:

• Hazard prediction, vulnerability and risk assessment method-

ology localized to the county level

• Integrated database for rural county

• Integrated information processing techniques and software

for preparation of and service with content that would assist

the herders and farmers

• Partnership and telecommunications network, Internet

website for sharing information and early warning

• A community information centre that would operate in rural

areas and bridge the digital divide.

Risk assessment methodologies have been developed and piloted

for 14 counties of Mongolia with the broad involvement of local

stakeholders on the example of frequent hazards such as dzud,

drought, epidemic diseases, and forest and steppe fire. In addition,

more studies and database developments with indigenous knowl-

edge, ground and satellite data, digital image processing, GIS and

Internet technology have been conducted for three counties.

Public and Private partnership for the e-Soum

and

e-Kara Korum

project

Mongolia’s ICT community and the RSWG have initiated the

‘e-Soum’ project proposal, which is designed to bring digital

technology to rural Mongolia to serve the basic needs of ordi-

nary people at the grassroots level. The project aims to establish

a sustainable system as well as using or developing software

tools and digital content that enable the monitoring, assess-

ment and prediction of both natural and human-made

environments, structures and systems. This will assist people

in understanding, evaluating and coping with complex systems,

sharing knowledge to create new ones, and actively participat-

ing in management and decision-making processes. The right

information at the right time will help to warn, secure, develop

and empower people – thus improving their knowledge, aware-

ness and creativity.

There are many software packages developed by local compa-

nies that could be utilized for e-Soum today. Newly established

ICT companies at the National IT Park have used e-Soum as a

market for their new developments and products, and decided

to join this initiative with their own organizational structure.

On 5 September 2005, the e-Soum website was launched with

the joint effort of incubator companies and a Memorandum of

Understanding to collaborate towards e-Kara Korum (the former

capital of Mongolia). This will be the first complete prototype of

e-Soum and was signed by five public and private partners,

namely the ICTA, National IT Park, the governor of the

O’vorkhangai province (where Kara Korum is located) and the

Mongolia IT Development Association (MIDAS/MONITA), which

represents several private ICT companies in Mongolia.

e-Soum is opening a market place for intelligent businesses.

The establishment and operation of Community Digital Centres

(CDC) in the rural counties requires dedicated investment. A

funding mechanism that operates for one to three years is funda-

mental to getting real benefits from digital technology,

strengthening the local community and households, reducing the

risks of rural business, improving productivity, attaining efficiency,

generating income and providing the basis for further success in

the information market. More than 50 organizations have joined

to work with or support the e-Soum initiative.

Discussions

Most rural counties are not self-sustainable economically, even

though they have their own land and resources. County territory

is divided into several bahgs, which is a territorial unit with a

governor and medical practitioner.

Improving the telecommunication infrastructure cannot alone

bridge the digital divide. There is a need to develop software tools

and digital content appropriate to the small rural economy with

its few residents. These developments are complex and are

country- and people-specific, as there are no ready-made method-

ologies and techniques. The development process tends to be

synonymous with learning-by-doing exercises. These require

substantial time and human, technological and financial resources

that are usually not affordable for a small and developing

economy.

ICT developments in e-Soum are to be constructed according

to rural market requirements – the capacity and resources of the

particular counties – and to go through an open partnership that

would encourage the involvement of various groups, in order to

avoid both the ‘central point of view’ and long development cycles

for ‘one big application’ approaches. The point of this system is

to get the herders to participate in gathering information about

their local environment and livelihoods. The herders are prag-

matic, skilled and experienced observers of nature, weather,

pasture vegetation and wild and domestic animals, as their indige-

nous knowledge has been accumulated over thousands of years

and passed from generation to generation.

In our pilots, the herders are involved in making notes on

weather conditions, air pressure, temperature and meteorologi-

cal phenomena and the impact of these upon their livelihoods.

Some experienced herders have been involved in monthly and

seasonal weather predictions and consultancy for winter 2004

and spring 2005. The evaluation of both official and traditional

weather predictions showed good matching results, so this exer-

cise will be conducted again for winter 2005 and spring 2006 for

some counties in the Dundgobi province.

The ground measurement of pasture grass biomass and animal

bodyweight, and the daily and weekly monitoring of weather,

vegetation (Figure 1, Figure 2), temperature and moisture with

the use of satellite data has been improving the understanding

of natural processes. They have also shown how they interact

with the rural economy, human activities, and reveal the

strengths and weaknesses of organizations, particularly those in

public services. The results of disaster risk studies and pilots are

valuable not only for science and technology; but also to improve

the efficiency of governance with sound decision-making and

policy development.

The conceptual design of a rural county database and its simpli-

fied prototype on Microsoft Access DMBS has been developed

for three counties (Figure 3). The common specifics of these data-

bases are:

• To be based on the digital elevation and land cover/use model

of the county territory

• To relate environmental and socioeconomic data with each

other temporally and spatially

• To attribute data tables on family members, employment,

health, education, herds, winter stands, wells and link them

with a ‘household’ primary key.