Honorable President,
Distinguished Governors and guests
Ladies and Gentlemen

It is my great pleasure and honour to deliver a speech from this eminent stage whilst representing the Government of Mongolia.

Address of H.E. Mr. Kofi Annan earlier this morning on the situation in Africa, his insights and valuable suggestions are contributing to a more concrete and business like debate.

Our Government greatly appreciates the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) for its contribution to the Millennium Development Goals of poverty reduction and sustainable worldwide food supply.        

I would like to stress that the presentation “Rural Poverty – 2011” given in December last year by IFAD was an important document which analyzed the current situation of rural poverty by a definition of the challenges. The presentation also included much useful information which included strategic policies and measures taken by various Governments and stakeholders.      

Nowadays, feeding the world population and assuring food security has become a major priority as world population increases. The Mongolian Government fully agrees with the requirement to implement a comprehensive policy towards creating jobs in rural area, to enable a favorable legal environment for small and medium businesses, to solve any financial issues and to expand market opportunity. The Government notes, in particular, the need to take concrete measures to increase the participation of youth which is the future of the sector.

Mongolia is significant in that one third of its total population lives in rural areas by traditional livestock herding and crop production. About 60 percent of total population are young being aged under thirty years. In this regard, we think that the theme of this session “Investing in Youth” and “Rural Poverty” is well-timed for Mongolia where this issue is one of the challenges facing my country.

The food, agriculture and light industry sector produces about 40 percents of the country’s GDP and employs 60 percent of total workforce. These statistics show how this sector is so important for the country’s economic development. Accordingly, the Mongolian Government attaches great importance to this sector by the implementation of national programmes and I am pleased to say has made some clearly identified successes so far. 

For example, as a result of the “Crop III” national programme which was implemented during 2008-2010, the crop production sector has been rehabilitated and both techniques and technologies have been renewed.   We have achieved self sufficiency with wheat production at 100% and vegetable production at 64% creating six thousand new workplaces in rural areas. In addition, we have specific objectives to develop an integrated intensive livestock and crop production system in already identified parts of the country providing not only domestic food needs, but also surpluses to export to the international markets.           

In order to reduce rural poverty and encourage rural economic development we are supporting small and medium processing enterprise based on agricultural raw materials. The Government of Mongolia spent about 50 million USD as soft loans in the last 2 years. Consequently, the employment in rural area has increased making progress towards improving family incomes and creating further opportunites for new businesses. This will further create non-agricultural workplaces and develop value added enterprises. The recommencement of technical educational also became a great step towards further education and training of our youth in the short term and will  further decrease unemployment and poverty in rural areas.

The participants should bear in mind that by realizing all the above Mongolia would be able to not only to satisfy its own needs, but can also provide its vast territory to addressing some of the food needs of the international community.

We have implemented the “Rural Poverty Reduction program” in Arkhangai, Bulgan Huvsgul and Khentii provinces by using the fund of IFAD’s soft loan facility from 2003 to 2010. Taking this opportunity, I would like to extend my appreciation to IFAD for the soft loan which is devoted to micro credit and credit guarantee.

I believe that the 34th session of the Governing Council of IFAD will make many relevant important decisions on global poverty reduction in rural areas and the preparation of a new generation to improve and support the agricultural industry. I wish great success to the assembly in which the Mongolian delegates will closely cooperate with other delegates to achieve an excellent conference result.

Thank you for attention.  

19 February 2011