Christina Toepell, MAAPPS // Feb 23, 2015
With all of us sharing best practices in sub-national reporting and trying to slowly find solutions for Mongolia, the issue of the needs and preferences of civil society in Mandal Soum still creates a big question mark. The past weeks have seen us researching on local and sub-national reporting in 13 different countries, slowly understanding the opportunities and pitfalls of new projects and getting more and more excited to implement best practices in Mongolia. But what about civil society in Northern Mongolia? Do they think corruption is an issue? Do they believe public participation can tackle this issue? Would they see a potential sub-national report even as relevant or needed? While not forgetting that one civil society never exists and individuals all have different desires, it is important to dive into behavioural patterns and take a closer look at perception of corruption and civil society involvement in Mongolia.
The major conclusion I draw from analyzing sub-national reporting in the Philippines is its inherent believe that civil groups and individuals can elicit change and can have an impact on society as a whole. Understandingly, this has not always been purely positive when examining the myriad of uprisings in the past years and decades. It is certainly important for our cause. My feelings are backed by reports from Transparency International Philippines. NGOs and the media are two of the three least corrupt bodies in public opinion and perception, implicating a stable acceptance of organized interest groups and a solid control mechanism through media reporting. With this proactive nature of a cultural group, sub-national reporting initiatives are easier accepted by stakeholders. This might certainly explain the relative ease with which sub-national reporting was implemented in Compostela Valley on the Southern island of Mindanao. But what behavioural challenges and opportunities would a sub-national reporting scheme face in Mongolia?
Civil society rights and transparency score relatively high in Mongolia. According to Freedom International, Mongolia enjoys high freedom of civil liberties. Freedom of expression and belief and organizational rights are both valued and cherished. Looking at Open Society Forum, a Mongolian public opinion and policy research think tank, transparency and disclosure of forms have increased in the past years. However, only by consulting Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, we understand the feelings and beliefs of civil society. Examining the corruption perception of Mongolian institutions, NGOs rank very high. With only 16% of Mongolian respondents believing that they are corrupt, NGOs are the second least corrupt institution, as perceived by civil society.
For us most relevant, however, is belief in the impact of public involvement. 46% of Mongolians agree or strongly agree that ordinary people cannot make a difference in the fight against corruption. This poses significant challenges on all initiatives working on transparency, and makes a potential implementation of sub-national reporting even harder. I fear that public society would miss the relevance of reporting initiatives and would dismiss them too soon. If we are to go through with a sub-national reporting initiative, the behavioural approach cannot be neglected. We need to put additional effort and care into how to approach civil society and how to nudge individuals into being involved in the project, into believing that their impact matters.