4Futures Lab 2026 Mongolia
The Parachute Program
Restoring Land by Restoring Livelihoods
Restore the pastures and you restore the livelihoods — the people we train become the workforce that delivers clean heat, and wellbeing accounting pulls finance back to the land.
UNCCD COP17 · Ulaanbaatar · 17–28 August 2026 · “Restoring Land. Restoring Hope.”
THE MOMENT
A “Land COP” with a finance problem
Restoration is chronically underfunded because degradation looks
54%
of the world’s land surface is rangeland
500M+
people depend on rangelands for their livelihoods
≈ ½
of rangelands show declining productivity — yet receive a fraction of climate finance
WHY MONGOLIA, WHY NOW
Mongolia holds the COP17 presidency into 2028. The GEF-funded, IUCN-implemented Mongolia COP17 Legacy Project (~$12.65M) exists to catalyse investment in rangeland restoration — but it needs an account that makes the value of healthy land visible, so capital moves before collapse. That account is Pillar 3.
MONGOLIA
Five crises, one self-reinforcing trap
Land degradation & dzud
Migration to ger districts
Coal heating
Toxic air & ill health
No pathways, low investment
↺ the trap deepens
77%
200,000
687 µg/m³
3 . 5 ×
$400M
land degraded
UB households burn coal
PM2.5 peak — 45× WHO
winter fetal mortality
spent, no scale
The lesson in that last number: the $400M failure was not a shortage of capital — it was the absence of delivery architecture. Who installs, who is trained, who is accountable, and how you prove the money changed lives.
THE IDEA IN ONE LOOP
Measure → Train → Deliver → Account
Measure where the trap is deepest → train from those communities → let them deliver the transition → account for it so finance follows.
Measure
Indicators show which ger-district households need clean heat and which rural soums are emptying — targeting place and investment.
1
Train
We recruit from those same communities — ger-district youth and coal-linked workers, 50% women.
2
Deliver
Trained crews staff neighbourhood clean-heat companies (CESCOs) that warm 50,000+ homes.
3
Account
Wellbeing and land value are measured — so capital keeps flowing on verified results. The loop closes.
4
TVET is the hinge — it turns a diagnosis into delivered warmth and paid work.
PILLAR 1 - FUTURE OF WORK & TALENT
TVET as the engine of jobs
Outcome-linked vocational training where funding is tied to employment, not enrolment — at roughly $300–1,200 per trainee.
WHO WE TRAIN - TWO COHORTS
Urban low-income youth · 18–25
Informal or unstable work, no certified qualification, from migrant former-herder households.
Coal-linked heating workers · 25–45The informal heating sector whose income the transition threatens — the transition workforce.
WHAT THEY TRAIN IN
Green Construction · 3 months — insulation, clean-heat installation, smart meters (the workforce for Pillar 2).
.
Urban Green Services · 6 weeks — recycling, sanitation, circular micro-business.
.
Digital & Remote · 8 weeks — AI & digital tools, remote freelancing.
40%
35%
25%
HOW THEY'RE RECRUITED
Through TVET centres, community “Learning Ecosystem” hubs and the Female Futures Lab.
-
Intake designed for 50% women and 30% coal workers
-
Pilot of 500 trainees across 2 ger districts, scaling to 1,200/year
-
80% completion, 65% employed within six months.
Three ways the training pays society back
Turns a cost into jobs
The health-and-climate damage of coal smoke becomes local, paid green work — insulation crews and clean-heat installers.
1
A genuinely just transition
The coal-linked workers whose livelihoods the shift threatens are the ones retrained to build its replacement.
2
Closes the gender & youth gap
Women are ~40% of STEM graduates but only ~10% of energy jobs. The Female Futures Lab and Learning Ecosystems bring women and ger-district youth in with recognised credentials.
3
Diaspora as infrastructure: 220,000 Mongolians abroad (70%+ university-educated) become structured mentors — brain circulation, not brain drain.
Where the money for the training comes from
A blended-finance vehicle — the Just Transition Skills Fund. Trainees pay nothing up front; different investors take different risk for different return.
20% 40% 40%
First-loss / grants
-
Public
-
Philanthropy
— absorbs early losses
Concessional debt
Development banks — below-market rates
Senior impact capital
Impact investors — 6–8% return
Repaid three ways, so it recycles rather than relying on perpetual subsidy: employer co-financing when a graduate is hired; Income-Share Agreements (5–8% of income for 36 months, capped at 1.5× cost, paused below a living wage); and municipal service contracts. The Clean Heat Transition Facility uses the same structure — mobilising ~$4 of private capital for every $1 of public money.