The Voluntary Guidelines led to increased support and capacity for the development of a pastoral land law. The Voluntary Guidelines are being used as the reference set of principles. 

An initial national workshop enabled participants from government, civil society, the private sector and academia to become familiar with the Voluntary Guidelines. The participants identified entry points and priorities for using the Voluntary Guidelines and decided to translate them into the Mongolian language and to disseminate them widely.

Following the workshop, a national platform on the Voluntary Guidelines and a working group chosen from among its members were established by an order of the State Secretary of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture. Subsequent national workshops provided a forum for participants to identify ways to improve the draft pastoral land law, and also allowed an opportunity for people from the Kyrgyz Republic to share experiences of implementing its innovative pastures law.

The national multi-stakeholder workshops also served to review an assessment of tenure governance in the forest sector, which used an assessment framework based on the Voluntary Guidelines. 

Developing human resources and organizational capacity with regard to improved governance of tenure has been important. A learning programme on “Governing land for women and men” provided an opportunity for representatives from government, civil society, private sector and academia to develop capacities to support the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines in a gender-sensitive way.

The learning programme included an online course and a four-day workshop. The participants increased their knowledge on key land and gender issues in the country, interacted and fostered collaboration with other stakeholders, and enhanced their soft skills. During the workshop, they prepared work plans to start translating their new knowledge into action. The participants were able to seek further guidance and advice through an online mentoring phase.

Civil society and grassroots organizations were the focus of a specialized learning programme that reviewed the process for developing the draft pastoral land law. The results of the exercise were presented at one of the national workshops.

FAO has provided technical support to Mongolia since 2014, with financial support from Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom (DFID).