Data and research
Our programmes and initiatives are grounded in rigorous research and thoughtful analysis about the situation of children.
New country programme of cooperation 2017-2021
Planned Results:
UNICEF will continue improving the coverage, quality and equity focus of disaggregated data, as well as strengthen results monitoring, including the child-focused Sustainable Development Goals. The programme will invest in harmonizing statistics on child rights across state bodies (including through sectoral management information systems) to align with international standards, and also engage with line ministries in monitoring the implementation of newly adopted laws. Strengthening the data, statistics and evaluation national capacity will be a strategy for all the Outcomes defined in the CPD.
Key results of UNICEF/ Government of Mongolia cooperation cycle 2012-2016
To make the quality data on children and equity available and transformed to knowledge for duty bearers and further decisions and actions for children, UNICEF Mongolia supported 43 surveys and studies and 2 evaluations in the past 5 years complemented with building the technical and analytical research as well as evaluation capacity of participating academic, government and non-government institutions. Two of UNICEF Mongolia studies were assessed as “best of UNICEF research”. UNICEF Mongolia in collaboration and coordination with the FYCDNA supported building the administrative routine statistical system critical intervention towards formalising the collection of child statistics and making it a norm. UNICEF focused extensively on under-explored areas to cumulate the knowledge on children and delivery of effective services to fulfill children’s rights. UNICEF employed principles of applying internationally sound scientific standards to its research and evaluations transferring them to the partners and as such contributing towards the building sound national technical capacity.
UNICEF continued its cooperation with the NSO in conducting the large scale national household survey – Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey locally named as Social Indicator Sample Survey. The most recent survey of 2013 has been done in partnership with the UNFPA to coordinate the UN efforts in cross-cutting issues. Further, UNICEF in coordination with the NSO has supported provincial MICSs in its geographic focus areas Khuvsgul aimag and Nalaikh district in 2012 and 2016 to derive provincial level estimates and analyze intra-province disparities. The survey main report introduces 164 indicators in areas of child survival and health, child nutrition, mother’s health, reproductive health, child development and education, child protection, HIV/AIDS as well as WASH. All the indicators are disaggregated by many dimensions including sex, age, education, ethnicity, religion, housing conditions, wealth index and many others. Furthermore, the data made available to public for free to facilitate further in-depth analyses. Building on the MICS survey achievements further in-depth studies and analyses were done to maximize the use of data for analyses. Thus, equity profiles, in-depth analyses in key and under-studied areas such as early learning, intra-urban disparities, and data quality assessment of anthropometric measures were done to generate the knowledge in deeper understanding of the situation of children and dimensions of its disparities as well as improve the methodologies and consequently quality of data that works for children.
Further through its sectoral and cross sectoral programmes UNICEF supported its partners in extensive use and application of reliable and quality evidences in monitoring, planning and programming for children. The evidences generated were used in revision and development of 15 laws, policies, strategies, standards and development programmes in areas of child survival, health, nutrition, WASH, ECD, child protection and development.
Promoting the culture of evaluation - an essential element of the results based management, two evaluations such as RED Strategy Evaluation and WASH in Schools and Kindergartens project evaluation were done during the cycle in collaboration and coordination with the Government and partners. Management of evaluations has employed a strategy to engage the partners in every stage including planning, designing, implementation and follow-up in order to facilitate the process in objective, impartial, constructive and consultative manner as well as to facilitate the quality assurance and standards.
Specific results in 2016
UNICEF Mongolia’s technical support to the Family, Child and Youth Development Authority (FCYDA) and the National Statistics Office of Mongolia contributed to strengthen national expertise in survey and data management as well as in translating data into monitoring and action for children. The Country Office's high level advocacy resulted to the extensive incorporation of children’s statistics in the Cabinet Secretariat’s monitoring frameworks of the Government policies and National programmes with 15 child related indicators.
UNICEF Mongolia supported the planning and implementation of the 2016 provincial MICS in Khuvsgul province and Nalaikh district, the country programme’s two geographic focus areas. Provincial MICS contributes to the strengthening of the local technical capacity in managing the sample surveys which in turn is expected to contribute to the quality evidences at local level and support the local planning and programming.
New data on children collected based on newly introduced methodologies and tools were used in monitoring the National Programmes and Strategies such as National Programme on Adolescent and Youth Development, National Programme of Gender equity, National Programme of Elimination of All Forms of Hazardous Child Labour, Child Protection Strategy and Child Participation Strategy. With the joint advocacy of UNICEF Mongolia and FCYDA, 129 child indicators were approved by the Statistical Methodology Council. Sectoral coordination on data collection was strengthened with newly established cooperation modalities and agreements with the Center for Health Development, Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, General Police Department, Traffic Police, The Judicial General Council of Mongolia, National Emergency Management Agency, Association of Mongolian Advocates, National Center of Trauma and Injuries, and General Agency of Social Welfare.
