Leaders Advancing Democracy (LEAD) Mongolia Program

Program Description

USAID's Leaders Advancing Democracy (LEAD) Mongolia Program was a five-year initiative helped build the next generation of democracy champions across Mongolia.

Funded by USAID and World Learning, and together with its partners, the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the Centre for Citizenship Education (CCE), the LEAD Mongolia Program undertook a variety of leadership programs, international exchanges, and civic education activities. 

The program consisted of three important and interconnected activities, designed to support promising young leaders to work collaboratively to solve the country’s most pressing issues. The program included a U.S.-Mongolia Emerging Leaders Exchange Program with 246 young leaders aged 25 to 40 from different sectors; an international LEAD Alliance, which connected Mongolian emerging leaders with like-minded peers in Bhutan, Kyrgyzstan and Myanmar, and positioned them as regional leaders; and a civic education curriculum development and citizen engagement component with high school students. 

World Learning partnered with USAID on this important initiative to support Mongolia’s best and brightest young democracy advocates to realize their vision for positive change in their country. Our participants, known as LEAD Fellows, worked together to create positive change in the areas of poverty and unemployment, environment and urbanization, and transparency and anti-corruption and were trained to incorporate inclusion in their projects and careers and advance their understanding of inclusive democracy and development. By the conclusion of the LEAD Mongolia Program, these LEAD Fellows formed a robust and inclusive network of confident young Mongolian and international leaders with strong democratic values, working together to shape policy, bolster civic activism, and realize their vision for positive change in Mongolia and in the region.