Releasing the True Potential

Adolescent Participation in Mongolia

Abstract

*Focus on Southeast Asia, East Asia and the Pacific | Reports from the Field

Mongolia’s adolescents are growing up in a world that is totally different from the one in which their parents became adults. Traditional expectation is that young people remain silent in the presence of an adult and to express their opinion or challenge those of their elders is the height of discourtesy. At the turn of the century, for the first time, the Mongolian government and the United Nations agencies focused attention on the participation and development rights of adolescents. Adolescents’ perception of their own needs became the blueprint for “Improving the Outlook of Mongolian Adolescent Girls and Boys,” an extensive multi-sectoral project involving a variety of separate but linked initiatives in 17 rural and urban project sites. This report examines the process and quality of adolescent participation within the context of the project, at each stage of the project cycle, and the effect of participation on the adolescents themselves and on their families, their schools, their communities, and government policy.