ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia – On 13 August, UNDP Mongolia facilitated the “Cashmere Sector Recovery from Covid-19 - Building Forward Better” workshop with key stakeholders of Mongolia’s cashmere industry including public, private and civil society representatives under the guidance of international Systems thinking experts.

Cashmere is a highly strategic commodity for Mongolia as nearly a million herders’ livelihood depend on. Although increased recent global demand for cashmere brought itself number of benefits, it also contributed to an environmental degradation such as overgrazing, deforestation, landscape and rangeland erosion, and loss of biodiversity. While the herders and processors both acknowledge and face the disappearing pastureland, they struggle to change current practices and are largely unable to shift to more sustainable ways.

In addition, Covid-19 continues to bring unprecedented challenges to the industry. Raw cashmere price is reduced by 50 percent from last year and sales has decreased 70-80 percent due to sector-wide cancellations of export contracts.

Ms. Nashida Sattar, Deputy Resident Representative of UNDP Mongolia, said “UNDP recognized the need to introduce sustainability measures to the cashmere sector and rolled out the Sustainable Cashmere Platform last year with the objective of positioning Mongolia as a global leader of sustainable cashmere. We are leveraging the Cashmere Platform to help address the extraordinary challenges faced by the sector today” during her opening remarks.

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For further inquiries:

Erdenesukh Otgonbayar

Communications Officer

UNDP Mongolia

Tel: +976 9909 6434 Email: erdenesukh.otgonbayar@undp.org