EAVI is partnering with the Press Institute of Mongolia (PIM) on a new project co-funded by the EuropeAid Programme of the European Union: “Strengthening Mongolian Democracy: Empowering Civil Society through Media and Information Literacy”.

The project is a three-year initiative designed to strengthen Mongolia’s democratic resilience, civic participation, and media and information literacy ecosystem by empowering civil society organisations, public institutions, and local communities.

While Mongolia has become one of Asia’s most connected societies, reliance on fast-scroll platforms, uneven rural connectivity, and limited resilience to manipulation continue to expose citizens and institutions to disinformation and polarising narratives. In this context, the project aims to build an inclusive, participatory, and digitally resilient civic society landscape by strengthening the media and information literacy competencies of civil society organisations, increasing awareness among public authorities, and fostering long-term coordination between civil society organisations, government bodies, and educators.

TARGET GROUPS

The main target audience groups of the project are:

Civil-society activists and staff of watchdog civil society organisations working on governance, human rights, and media freedom, in both urban centres and rural aimags;
Government officials in ministries and regulatory bodies shaping digital-information policy, including the Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Digital Development and Communication, and the Communications Regulatory Commission;
Citizens, particularly youth and rural communities, exposed to disinformation and low resilience to manipulation.

OBJECTIVES

The project partners collaborate to achieve the following objectives:

Equip civil society organisations with evidence-based MIL resources and secure digital practices, through a nationwide baseline survey, five modular MIL courses, and an open portal hosting all resources;
Increase MIL awareness within government and embed it in national policy, through a seven-day EU study tour, targeted workshops for public officials, and multi-stakeholder roundtables;
Foster structured collaboration and coordination among civil society organisations, government, and other stakeholders through roundtables, annual forums, and the establishment of a government-decreed National MIL Committee;
Build civic capacities, through annual MIL Forums, youth bootcamps, and joint civil society-media advocacy micro-campaigns;
Secure long-term institutional anchoring of MIL in Mongolia’s legal, educational, and regulatory frameworks.

IMPACT

The ultimate aim of the project is to contribute to a more inclusive, participatory, empowered, and independent civil-society and democratic space in Mongolia.

By strengthening the MIL competencies of civil society organisations, increasing institutional awareness, and creating a formal multi-stakeholder framework, the project seeks to bolster Mongolia’s democratic resilience and raise the share of adults undertaking at least one civic action, while ensuring that communities often underrepresented in formal policymaking processes become active contributors to shaping the future of Mongolia’s information ecosystem.

The project is also designed to generate multiplier effects through the creation of an open-source portal, a trainer network, annual MIL forums, and the establishment of the National MIL Committee, designed to be transferable and adaptable across different contexts and future civic initiatives beyond the duration of the project.

ACTIVITIES

On 29 April 2026, EAVI joined PIM in Ulaanbaatar for the project kick-off meeting to map out three years of meaningful collaboration ahead. Over the course of the project, EAVI will contribute to a wide range of activities, including but not limited to:

Co-developing five independent MIL modules and providing EU curriculum and quality assurance of the ISBN-registered MIL Trainer’s Handbook in Mongolian and English;
Organising the seven-day EU study mission for 15 high-level delegates, moving from Berlin to Brussels and ending in Copenhagen, and producing the Joint Reflection Report linking EU lessons to the Mongolian context;
Co-teaching the five-day residential Train-the-Trainer bootcamp, certifying 20 trainers from civil society organisations, half from rural aimags;
Co-delivering four targeted workshops for public officials covering MIL safeguards during elections, integrating MIL across basic and teacher-training curricula, online-safety regulation and platform cooperation, and gender-responsive MIL policy.

More details on upcoming activities and events will be shared throughout the duration of the project.