Mongolia was added in the list of countries in the Asian-Pacific region to have its national adaptation of the My.Coop – Managing your agricultural cooperative training package, as the National Association of Mongolian Agricultural Cooperatives (NAMAC) and the ILO joined forces to translate and adapt this tool for agricultural cooperatives.

The adaptation took place within the framework of the ILO’s “Promoting and Building Social Protection and Employment Services for Vulnerable Groups in Mongolia (MAPS)” project, followed by a My.Coop training of trainers (ToT) for herder cooperative organizations on 9-13 May, 2016 in the capital, Ulaanbaatar. The training, organized jointly by NAMAC and the ILO, brought together 26 participants from 15 provinces of Mongolia, staff from NAMAC and Mongolian Cooperative Training and Information Center (MCTIC), as well as some project staff to test and validate the newly-adapted materials.

The purpose of the training was to introduce the My.Coop training package to cooperative organizations, and to capacitate trainers to enable them to conduct the training locally in herders’ cooperatives throughout Mongolia.

The training included all four modules of My.Coop training course: Basics of an agricultural cooperative; Cooperative service provision; Supply of farm inputs; and Cooperative marketing.

During the training, time was dedicated for the validation and adaptation of My.Coop into the local context and all participants expressed the usefulness and need of such trainings to manage the herders’ cooperatives and offer highly effective and efficient services to their members. The Mongolian version of the package now includes a number of case studies, images and information on the local context, making it more attractive for Mongolian cooperatives.

In the week following the ToT, two newly-qualified My.Coop trainers went to Bayankhongor province for field training for 20 cooperative leaders of selected herders’ cooperatives from two project soums (counties), providing an opportunity to test the adapted package in the real life situation, and for the trainers to apply their facilitation skills and techniques.

The article was written by Ms Altantuya Tseden-Ish (NAMAC) and Mr Nyamdavaa Yondonjamts (MAPS / ILO).

For more information on the My.Coop and its adaptation, see the Guide for Potential Users.