Business Council of Mongolia

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Human health, safety, and security are among Oyu Tolgoi’s foremost priorities, and a core competency of the project, as evidenced by the project’s comprehensive internal health and safety policies and procedures, and the ongoing work of the OT Health, Safety, Environment, and Security (HSES) department. OT recognizes that it has a vested interest in ensuring optimal health, safety, and security not only among its employees and contractors, but in its neighboring communities as well. Therefore, OT is endeavoring to design and implement a Community Health, Safety & Security Program (CHSSP) that aims to 1) minimize and mitigate, health, safety, and security (HSS) impacts directly and indirectly stimulated by OT operations, and 2) measurably improve HSS service delivery, capacity, and indicators in the target area, and 3) complement and build upon existing OT HSES policies, standards, knowledge and best practices pertaining to employees and contractors, and extend such standards to local stakeholders where appropriate and feasible.

The Program should be compatible with existing policies of OT’s Health, Safety, Environment, and Security (HSES) department, and should carefully consider environmental issues and impacts as they affect, and are affected by, human health and safety. Te resultant CHSSP should function to deepen the alignment of project activities and strategies in the areas of HSS and environment. The CHSSP will be developed using participatory methods, relying on engagement with and input from stakeholders throughout planning, implementation, and evaluation phases. The geographic scope to be covered under the CHSSP shall be primarily the direct and indirect impact areas of the OT project.

Click here to view the Requests for Proposal (RFP) to conduct a Consultancy Service pertaining to the design of a long-term Community Health, Safety & Security Program (CHSSP) framework and implementation plan.

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On October 6, 2009 the Mongolian government signed a U.S. $4 billion mining deal with Canadian-based Ivanhoe Mines and its Anglo-Australian partner, Rio Tinto. These companies will jointly develop a project at Oyu Tolgoi, a location thought to hold one of the world’s largest copper and gold reserves. Hopes are high that this site, in the hitherto underdeveloped heart of the Gobi Desert, will bring forth unprecedented prosperity to this nation of fewer than three million people. This project will also launch a series of other possible contracts involving other partners worldwide – Russia and China to begin with, as well as India and Japan, among others. By enlisting fiscal and technological investment from these and other countries, Mongolia aims to utilize its vast yet untapped deposits of gold, silver, iron ore, coal, and uranium.

But there are also political and security motivations behind this agreement, in addition to the hoped-for economic benefits. Beginning here and now, Mongolia’s national security – both in theory and in practice – will be defined in terms of perceived success in multi-dimensional geo-economic balancing rather than the relatively simple geo-political and/or geo-strategic balancing that dominated both scholarly thought and practical actions since Mongolia’s Democratic Revolution in 1990. Throughout Mongolia’s two-decade period of democratic experience and real independence – following almost 70 years of membership in the Soviet bloc which restrained freedom of action in the international arena – its perception of and strategy for national security has undergone three distinct episodes, one gradually evolving into the next. Now, Mongolia’s national security strategy is progressing into a fourth and more complicated stage. Despite the shift in substance from politics to economy, the core concern remains the same. Mongolia will continue to pursue a strategy of diversifying its partners – more partners result in greater balancing opportunities and hence, a more guaranteed external security environment.