The project has been implemented with SDC support since 2015, working in cooperation with the Municipality of Ulaanbaatar and The Asia Foundation.
One of the most notable achievements of the Urban Governance Project is the establishment of the Human Resource Development Center of Ulaanbaatar (HRDC-UB) in 2018 to strengthen the capacity of municipal civil servants.
Developing professional, citizen-oriented municipal civil service has been high on the agenda of municipal authorities as Ulaanbaatar struggles to address the many challenges of rapid urbanization, including the delivery of quality, responsive, and equitable public services to its 1.5 million residents.
Before the establishment of HRDC-UB, the Municipality of Ulaanbaatar didn’t have its own capacity-strengthening system. As a result, only four percent of around 4,400 administrative civil servants received ad-hoc training offered by different government agencies and training institutions. The establishment of HRDC-UB has changed this situation, with HRDC-UB providing systematic, customized training that is appreciated by municipal civil servants across different levels of Ulaanbaatar city administration.
Batzaya Terbish is a trainer who has benefited from HRDC-UB, working in teams and learning from other trainers by helping them help design and develop. For as long as she can remember, Batzaya wanted to be a teacher. After graduating from university as an engineering teacher, she devoted herself to teaching and educating others.
Batzaya has worked at HRDC-UB since 2018. She has a career teaching university students how to properly use computer programs and has always considered teaching others to be a blessing. When she saw there was an opening at HRDC-UB and learned about their mission, she thought it was a perfect match since she wanted to support civil servants and teach others.
She was hired by HRDC-UB and started assisting with various projects, such as writing learning manuals and training programs for others, including building online tools to increase productivity. Soon after, she was given the opportunity to conduct a workshop on using online tools to increase productivity. She thought teaching a class she’d never taught before would be tough. She felt she needed more training because she was more adept at computer programming and teaching people how to use Microsoft Excel than how to use online resources that may be helpful in the workplace.
Batzaya recounts, "We were teaching employees to conduct surveys using Google Forms rather than pen and paper. I hadn't started teaching anything yet, and I was a little nervous because I felt I needed more training to teach a class like that. However, after the workshop ended, we received scores from the students on how well the trainers taught, and I received a 4.6 out of 5, which made me happy. Not only was I capable of teaching people, but working closely with other trainers really prepared me for conducting such a class."
Previously, Batzaya had to develop teaching programs on her own, but when she started working at HRDC-UB, she was required to work in teams to develop better training programs. The HRDC-UB program also requires student collaboration, rather than just having students listen and write down the material, which helped her see the value of working in teams, something that she had not experienced before: "One thing I realized is how valuable it is to work in groups. When I taught younger students, it seemed more valuable for me to work directly with one student than having them work in groups, teaching each other and collaborating."
Since 2019, HRDC-UB has trained over 10,000 civil servants, with over 90 percent of training participants regularly reporting an improved capacity to do their jobs. As of today, HRDC-UB offers nearly 30 different training courses. It has introduced innovative training methodologies that, in addition to traditional classroom lectures, also include peer learning, on-the-job training, mentorship programs, and online classes.
The project has adopted a comprehensive approach to capacity-strengthening, which not only focuses on delivering training but also other key elements, such as regular training needs assessments and the monitoring and evaluation of training, which are used to make continuous improvements to meet Ulaanbaatar’s evolving needs.
In 2022, HRDC-UB obtained international accreditation (ISO 21001), resulting in better training for civil servants and better delivery of public services. The HRDC is the first government training organization to obtain ISO 21001 and provide training that meets international standards.
The Municipality of Ulaanbaatar’s co-funding has been an important factor in the successful founding and operations of the HRDC. The HRDC continues to evolve with fruitful partnerships established with domestic and international training institutions working in the field of local government capacity-strengthening.
In its most recent development, HRDC-UB signed an MoU with the Hague Academy for Local Governance to develop customized content to specifically address urban development issues. We wish HRDC-UB further success in achieving its goal of creating a more professional municipal civil service and better services for Ulaanbaatar residents.
For more information about HRDC-Ulaanbaatar
