Published: 04/02/2025
In December 2024 and February 2025, Mongolia held official public hearings on winter air pollution — a persistent issue that has plagued the country for decades. However, to address this challenge effectively, it’s time we move beyond surface-level conversations and anchor our national dialogues in a professional policy framework: the policy cycle.
🔁 What is a Policy Cycle?
A policy cycle typically spans 15 years, representing a full journey from idea to measurable outcomes and improvement. If Mongolia has been “developing” for 30 years, that means we’ve already gone through two such policy cycles.
Each 15-year cycle includes five progressive phases, each lasting around 3 years:
- Policy Initiation – Developing national policy with high-level strategic direction.
- Regulatory Development & Capacity Building – Creating regulatory tools, investing in infrastructure, and training implementing actors.
- High-Impact Intervention – Reaching the most affected populations and highest-potential sectors (e.g., urban hot zones, large institutions).
- Wider Uptake – Scaling to medium-sized entities and expanding coverage across all districts.
- Full Penetration – Engaging smaller communities and organizations at the khoroo (subdistrict) level.
Once this cycle is completed, the results should be tangible, measurable, and visible across society.
🌫️ Mongolia Needs “Air Pollution 2.0”
It’s time to conclude “Air Policy 1.0” and shift decisively into “Air Policy 2.0” — built on the lessons of the past 15 years. We must evaluate previous policy impacts not in vague terms, but by phase, by region, and with audited data.
🇺🇸 Just as the U.S. now speaks of Quality 4.0 and 5.0, representing their fourth and fifth policy cycles for improving product and service quality, Mongolia must also begin using terminology like “Air Pollution 2.0”, “Congestion 2.0”, “Urban Development 3.0”, etc., to signal maturity in its policy evolution.
🧩 Strategy ≠ Activity
We must also learn to differentiate levels of decision-making:
- Strategy = Long-term, system-wide policy transformation
- Tactics = The tools and methods selected to implement strategy
- Operations = The specific activities and actions carried out
Sadly, we often mistake a single activity (like improved stoves or fuels) for strategic policy, which blurs accountability and weakens long-term impact.
📊 Data-Driven, Auditable Outcomes
Every government program must now follow a structured policy cycle, with SMART indicators, clear accountability, and expert-developed outcomes. Too often, national policies are declared in slogan-style, broad brush strokes, without operational logic or measurable results.
Instead of focusing on declarations like “Vision 2050,” we should be asking:
What is “Pollution 2.0”?
What did “Pollution 1.0” achieve?
What phase are we in right now?
How do we audit our progress professionally?
🎯 Let’s apply this structured, professional policy approach to public hearings as well — and evaluate policy impact by phase.
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