August 21, 2023 — AFoCO Secretariat and the National Forestry Agency of Mongolia gathered online to sign the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the first country-driven project in Mongolia titled: “Forest restoration demonstration through high capacity tree nursery establishment and capacity building in support to Billion Trees National Movement (BTNM) in Mongolia (AFoCO/0039/2023)“.
The project envisions to increase the success rate of customized reforestation and forest restoration programs in the project sites; increase the restored forest fund as a demonstration in the project target sites; and disseminate project experiences and lessons learned, and increase public awareness on reforestation programs.
The project will establish three nurseries in two project sites in Mongolia – (1) Bayan-Uul soum, Dornod aimag, Northeastern Khentii, and (2) Deediin valley, Ulaanbaatar city, reforesting a total of 120 hectares of land in the Ereen Mountain ranges and Deediin Valley.
During his congratulatory remarks, the Vice Executive Director of AFoCO commented that “Mongolia will play a very important role as AFoCO continues to take larger tasks in the region to further spread our shared fundamental values. This project will contribute to the implementation of major forest rehabilitation and reforestation activities and efforts in Mongolia. This is only a manifestation of the strong leadership and efficient project management competencies of the National Forestry Agency of Mongolia.” At the end of the signing ceremony, both sides exchanges sincere appreciation for the efforts involved in launching this project and hoped that this project will be the first many to be implemented in Mongolia, as part of an unified effort to make a greener Asia.
The project Implementing Agency (IA), together with the AFoCO Secretariat’s Project Management Team, will organize the Project Inception Meeting (PIM) and the 1st Project Steering Committee (PSC) meeting in the near future for actual implementation of the project.
