IOM Launches Information Campaign on Internal Migration in Mongolia
Ulaanbaatar – Due to massive internal migration in Mongolia, almost half of the population lives in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar, leading to many challenges in the city, including air and soil pollution, traffic jam and leaving rural Mongolia deserted.
To help mitigate this trend, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) recently launched Should I Stay or Should I Go? Research It!, an information campaign that encourages internal migrants to better inform themselves before migrating within the country. The campaign launched on 23 February will run until 1 April 2021.
Fully supported by national and local government authorities in Mongolia, the campaign will include a wide range of multimedia outputs which include a documentary, series of videos, photos received from a photography contest, posters and brochures. All these will be disseminated through traditional and non-traditional media channels across the entire country, aiming to reach about 60 percent of the total population.
Although internal migration has been one of the strongest factors to shape the modern state of Mongolia, this is the first ever information campaign to address internal migrants in a comprehensive way.
Over the past few decades, many Mongolians have been moving from rural regions to the capital city, Ulaanbaatar, as a main coping mechanism with climate change induced slow onset and sudden disasters. The capital city, which now has almost half of the country’s entire population of 3,2 million has been put under significant pressure with regional discrepancies in economic opportunities and public service availability.
“Our research shows that internal migrants do not seek information about their destination and don’t have a plan for their journey, while the main sources of information are relatives and friends,” said Giuseppe Crocetti, IOM China and Mongolia Chief of Mission. With little exposure to official information and adequate research, migrants tend not to register their residency, face challenges in accessing public services, finding job and accommodation, he added. It is also seen from the research that one of the reasons migrants don’t register is that they either don’t know how to register or believe registering is too complicated.
“The campaign is aimed at equipping the prospective migrants with necessary information tools which they can use for a safer and more successful migration experience providing, at the same time, exposure to alternative destinations and modalities of internal migration,” said Victor Lutenco, programme manager at IOM Mongolia. “We are also trying to motivate the migrants who already settled, especially in Ulaanbaatar, to follow with proper registration of their new residency and guides them on getting full access to relevant public services,” Victor added.
IOM also cooperates with the national integrated digital service portal www.E-Mongolia.mn and its hotline 1111 as well as with General Authority for State Registration making all the necessary information on migration available on these platforms and digitalizing the residency registration service.
The Should I Stay or Should I Go? Research It! information campaign, which employed Communication for Development (C4D) methodology, is implemented as part of the Understanding and Managing Internal Migration in Mongolia project funded by Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. The objective of the project is to improve socio-economic well-being of internal migrants in Mongolia through evidence-based, migration inclusive policies and concrete interventions on the ground.
As of March 15, 2021, the campaign had reached about 1,5 million people across the country.
For more information, please contact Erkhembayar Munkhbayar @emunkhbayar@iom.int, +976-88101117.
Launching video of the campaign
Main documentary of the campaign
Alternate destination video from Khentii province
