A policy cycle lasts 15 years! Mongolia should now conclude its Air Pollution 1.0 policy and announce Air Pollution 2.0!
If Mongolia has been developing for 30 years, it means the country has completed two full policy cycles. Ideally, each 15-year cycle consists of structured progress: every three years, improvements are made, advancing through five key phases—ultimately reaching 15 years.
Here’s how the five phases could be structured:
- First 3 years – Policymakers lay the groundwork.
- Next 3 years – Regulatory bodies take action, implementing measures, training stakeholders, and addressing infrastructure needs.
- Following 3 years – The focus shifts to consumers and citizens, prioritizing the most vulnerable groups and urban pollution hotspots while engaging large organizations with procurement standards and supplier requirements.
- Subsequent 3 years – Expanding outreach to mid-sized businesses and extending policy implementation across all districts.
- Final 3 years – Ensuring small businesses and neighborhood-level entities are included, reaching every community.
By the end of a 15-year policy cycle, real, measurable changes should be evident across all sectors.
Entering the second 15-year cycle (Air Pollution 2.0), we should refine initial outcomes, address shortcomings, tighten regulations, and integrate previously unavailable resources into execution.
For instance, in the U.S., they have progressed to Quality 4.0 and Quality 5.0, signifying their fourth and fifth 15-year cycles of product and service quality improvements. Each phase advances systematically. If Air Pollution 1.0 is concluded, we must conduct hearings with clear objectives and formulate Air Pollution 2.0—structuring solutions at three levels: strategy, tactics, and operations.
Planning and solutions exist at multiple levels, with different responsibilities and scopes. However, discussions often reduce policy measures to minor operational solutions, like “fuel and stoves,” and mislabel them as strategic.
Mongolia must shift its approach—addressing issues through levels like Quality 5.0, Air Pollution 2.0, Traffic Congestion 2.0, and Urban Development 3.0. Policy effectiveness should be measured by professional institutions using audited data, and government programs must be drafted by experts to ensure logical coherence and SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) objectives. Lofty, vague documents won’t drive real implementation.
Instead of generic long-term plans like Vision 2050, let’s start talking in terms of Issue 3.0 and Issue 4.0 cycles. Although a strict 15-year cycle may not apply to all national stringency policies, there is clearly a policy cycle that aligns with a nation’s learning pace, its capacity to absorb new knowledge, and its ability to shift to new ways of life and work. This ensures a regular transition to a more sustainable lifestyle. So, we need to know which phase of policy we are at.
Even in hearings, we should adhere to the policy cycle structure, evaluating the impact of each phase systematically!
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