On 18 December 2020 the final Steering Committee meeting of the European Union funded project “Support Employment Creation in Mongolia” (SECIM)’ took stock if its achievements: SECIM devised a country and a product specific approach for the development of value chain. Over its entire project cycle, it reached more than 12 000 herders, vegetable growers, and over 80 food-processing companies. As direct result of the project intervention, around 2200 jobs were created along the dairy, meat and vegetable value chains in the last 5 years of the project implementation.

“The European Union tax payers’ money was well spent and the European Union is looking forward for the Government of Mongolia to replicate the innovative approaches of the project in other sectors as well”, said Mr  Traian Hristea, Ambassador of the European Union to Mongolia,

The SECIM project has been implemented at national and regional levels to identify new employment pathways and creating decent work. It strengthened the value chain in five food and non-food sectors: meat, dairy, textile, leather and vegetable.  

The SECIM project’ focus on engaging with the private sector and enhancing the social partnership proved to be successful in reaching the objectives. The activities linked the primary producers with large and medium food processing industries at national and local levels. This is a substantive change from the famous “farm-to-market” projects, which put enormous efforts on capacity building of smallholder producers to help them become full-fledged players in the market.

SECIM introduced a range of innovations into the selected value chains by identifying international best practices fit for the Mongolian value chain sectors. For example, individual quick freezing and dry cleaning technologies for vegetable industry; zero defect static flaying frame for the leather sector and mechanical sheep shearing for wool. The project also introduced a number of international standards (ISO) on  food safety and  processing standards. Hundreds of workers and employees of public and private sector have undergone wide spectrum of capacity building trainings.

A total of 44 stakeholders participated,  including Mr Unurbayar Gombosuren, State Secretary of the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection (MoLSP) as well as Chairman of the Steeering Committee, Mr Traian Hristea, Ambassador of the European Union to Mongolia, Mr Bolorchuluun, Director of Policy Planning Department of Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry (MoFALI) also National Project Director of SECiM C2, MrVinod Ahuja, FAO Representative in Mongolia, Mr Ali Badarneh, Chief of Sustainable Food Systems Division of Agri-Business Department, Project Manager of UNIDO, aimag government representatives, processing industry, professional assocation partners took part in the meeting.