From control to learning: Institutionalizing evaluation in democratic Mongolia
- 58 minutes ago
- 5 min read
By Uugantsetseg Ginchigdorj
Former Co-leader, EvalYouth Asia
Mongolia, often cited as a "poster child" for democracy among post-Communist societies, stands as a unique case of democratic transition. However, the 21-day "Easy to Resign" protests in 2025, led by youth, signaled that civil society is reclaiming constitutional mechanisms for a more participatory and responsive democratic system. This episode illustrates that democratic consolidation requires more than elections; it requires responsive institutions capable of learning and accountability.
In this context, strengthening the institutional foundations that enable evidence-based learning and accountability becomes essential. This reflects growing attention to the institutionalization of evaluation, the process of embedding evaluation within the legal, social, and professional systems. Institutionalization means that evaluation becomes routine, resourced, credible, and publicly meaningful rather than episodic or donor-driven.
To understand Mongolia’s current evaluation landscape, this blog draws on the Evaluation Globe framework by the Department of Sociology and the academic Center for Evaluation (CEval) at Saarland University, which analyzes the political, social, and professional systems, combined with the insights of the 2025 National Evaluation Capacities Index (INCE) pilot.
The political system: Strong legal mandates, unclear oversight
Following the transition to democracy and market-economy in the 1990s, Mongolia has undertaken multiple efforts to establish and govern monitoring and evaluation (M&E) within the government system. This journey began with the 1996 Parliament Resolution No. 38, which set the policy on government activities and structural reform, followed by the 1999 Government Resolution No. 4, regulating the monitoring and evaluation of administrative bodies and continued subsequent amendments and legislations. Today, Mongolia possesses a robust legal framework for M&E. The Law on Development Policy, Planning and its Management (2020) and the recent Government Resolution No. 43 (2025) mandate M&E across the public sector, which formally regulates evaluation as a distinct function from monitoring.
The results of the 2025 INCE pilot in Mongolia reflect this strength. The "Institutional Structure" dimension scored 4.4 out of 10, indicating that institutionalization of the evaluation ecosystem is at a moderate situation. The country has established a regulatory system where the government machinery is active; ministries report against plans and maintain dedicated M&E departments, and executives and decision-makers consume performance data as required by law.
However, the system remains heavily centralized. With the Authority for Government Supervision (AGS), the successor to the General Agency for State Inspection, leading these efforts in the absence of a specific National Evaluation Policy or a high-level decision-making body on evaluation, there is a risk that evaluation is perceived merely as a tool for internal administrative control rather than for broad democratic learning. Without safeguards for independence, evaluation can be conflated with supervision rather than learning.
The professional system: The missing middle
In the professional system as a sub-system in the Evaluation Globe concept, Mongolia faces a “missing middle”. The INCE pilot revealed a critical gap in the "Evaluation Offer" dimension, specifically a low score of 2.4 for "Training Programmes", indicating the absence of a formal professional education system to supply evaluators. This weakens the ability and availability to produce independent evaluations and hinders the development of local evaluation practices. Yet, this creates reliance on external expertise and limits the emergence of a locally grounded evaluation profession.
The social system: The democratic deficit
In the context of evaluation as a mechanism for government accountability, Mongolia faces a significant challenge. The INCE score for "Multi-agent spaces" was the lowest of all dimensions at 3.25. Although Mongolia has two Voluntary Organizations for Professional Evaluation (VOPEs), the informal Mongolian Evaluation Network (MEN) and the formal Mongolian Evaluation Association (MEA) and other stakeholders as civil society organizations and international organizations, their integration in state evaluation processes remains limited. This disconnect is illustrated by the protests mentioned above, highlighting unmet demand for participatory evaluation spaces.
The way forward: Gaps to address
While Mongolia has made progress, the path from "control" to "doing" and now shifting to "learning", the current landscape shows significant structural and practical gaps. It is insufficient to simply call for professional education or civil society engagement; the multi-level gaps below need to be addressed.
1. The policy gap: A critical gap remains in the absence of a National Evaluation Policy (NEP). While the country possesses laws and resolutions, it lacks a cohesive policy defining the principles of evaluation. Current laws mandate that evaluation occurs, but an NEP is needed to ensure independence and that public interests are prioritized over bureaucratic box-checking. Such a policy should define principles of independence, transparency, ethical standards, stakeholder participation, systematic use of findings, and public disclosure, guiding on how evaluation contributes to decision-making and how evidence is integrated into policy cycles. Though parliamentarians must play a leading role, this high-level strategic vision is currently missing in Mongolia.
2. The governance gap: While the AGS is currently the government body responsible for implementing M&E across state organizations, relying solely on a single agency to govern the entire system presents a risk to accountability. To ensure true democratic accountability, there is a need for a high-level, multi-stakeholder governance mechanism in the country, perhaps through a high-level body, committee or working group.
3. The utilization gap: Perhaps the most pressing challenge is the disconnect between evaluation findings and policy design at this critical transition moment. Even with the positive step of implementing Resolution No. 43, Regulation on Evaluation, whether the mechanism to ensure that these findings actually alter the next cycle of policy design exists, remains unclear. If the country begins conducting government programme evaluations but fails to use those findings to inform the design of future strategies, the system lacks best evaluation practice. Institutionalization is incomplete if evaluation does not feed back into policy cycles.
For Mongolia institutionalizing evaluation is ultimately about deepening democratic governance: ensuring that public institutions not only deliver, but listen, learn, and adapt. Moving from control to learning requires more than mandates; it requires professional capacity, civic engagement, and credible systems that connect evidence to reform. In this sense, evaluation becomes not just a tool of government, but part of democracy’s infrastructure.
Uugantsetseg Gonchigdorj is an independent evaluator and consultant with a background in sociology. She specializes in programme evaluation at the intersection of policy, systems, and institutional learning across diverse development sectors. She has contributed to evaluation networks including EvalYouth Asia, EvalYouth Mongolia, and the Mongolian Evaluation Association (2023–2025). Connect with Uugantsetseg on LinkedIn.
AI Disclaimer: AI tools were used solely to bring the blog to the required length and to correct grammatical issues. The blog's content, ideas, and narrative were authored by the human writer, not generated by AI.
Disclaimer: The content of the blog is the responsibility of the author(s) and does not necessarily reflect the views of Eval4Action co-leaders and partners.
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