In Mongolia, where state-owned mining companies hold immense sway over the national economy, public scrutiny has intensified following corruption scandals that exposed substantial gaps in transparency. However, limited access to reliable data hampers meaningful progress. To bridge this gap, the Mongolian Data Club launched a pioneering initiative to harness open data, highlighting hidden connections within the mining industry.
Beyond Mongolia, organizations across Southeast Asia are also making strides in transparency. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) supports CSOs across the region, including through the Southeast Asia Anti-Corruption Network (SEA-ACN), a platform promoting transparency in sectors like beneficial ownership and public procurement.
By collaborating with entities like Open Ownership and the Open Contracting Partnership, UNODC aims to advance consistent data standards, empowering both governments and civil society. UNODC has spoken with data analyst Delgermaa Boldbaatar, founder of Mongolian Data Club, about their work and what it takes to push for change in complex systems.
Question (UNODC): What motivated you and your team to investigate ownership structures within Mongolia’s mining sector?
Answer (Delgermaa Boldbaatar): Our main motivation was to fill a void of trustworthy, fact-based information amid a wave of political scandals in the mining sector. In 2022, a major scandal emerged, revealing that our largest state-owned mining company had lost nearly US$12 billion in coal exports. This amount was equivalent to Mongolia’s annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The scandal sparked widespread protests despite the cold: in Mongolia, we were at 30 degrees Celsius below zero at the time. It a growing public demand for truth, the push for transparency, and the availability of open data. When government officials attempted to reassure the public with new licensing policies, it felt like mere political theatre.
I was determined to uncover reliable information, and finding little, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Supported by the Open Society Forum, I assembled a team to create an independent data initiative that could bring factual clarity to the mining sector. The team was of diverse talents, and we decided to pilot a project aimed at leveraging high technology, along with analytical and storytelling skills, to fill the information gap and contribute to trustworthy information sources in Mongolia about the mining sector.
The project aimed to demonstrate how public open datasets can be used to uncover significant issues, such as who is supplying which goods or services, at what cost, and any potential connections between suppliers and high-ranking public officials.
Q: What specific challenges did you encounter when accessing, compiling, and verifying the data?
A: It is a painstaking process that requires true commitment to uncover the truth. For several months, we scraped data from four government portals that disclosed company registrations, public procurements, and public officials’ property and conflict of interest declarations (…). We trained 16 investigative journalists who accessed the data. Remarkably, we found that just five companies out of 188 controlled 30% of coal transport trucks.
We faced considerable challenges at nearly every stage. Scraping data from four government portals on company registrations, public procurements, and officials’ declarations was just the start. Data quality was another issue; poor formatting and missing entries meant months of manual work. Additionally, not all datasets were openly available, forcing us to request access from certain government offices —a process often delayed or denied.
Training journalists to use the data also posed unique challenges. While we managed to equip them with both technical skills and contextual knowledge, balancing journalistic ethics and ensuring compliance with privacy laws was a delicate task. Essentially, we wanted to combine technology, data, and storytelling to bring greater transparency.
Q: What role did collaboration with other civil society organizations and stakeholders play in your project?
A: Collaboration was crucial. Shared motivations to provide greater transparency helped to bring together other stakeholders toward the same goal. For instance, the Open Society Forum was essential to our project’s success, helping us navigate legal challenges, providing grants, and collectively advocating the insights for policy improvement at the decision-making level. I also want to thank our partner from the government, the Independent Authority Against Corruption, for their support. We also partnered with professional media experts and a data analytics company to develop a curriculum, build journalists’ analytical capabilities, and edit the final stories.
Each partner brought their expertise to the table, which enabled us to create a robust data-driven framework. The project was a testament to how collective effort can amplify impact. Likeminded civil society organizations were key to overcome all these challenges.
Q: What advice would you offer to data scientists or civil society groups pursuing similar investigations in other sectors or countries?
A: It’s important to take the initiative and inspire collaboration to experiment with new, data-driven approaches. Having a strong team is essential to tackling technical and ethical challenges. In our case, revealing hidden ownership structures brought added pressure, so understanding the legal landscape and preparing for potential risks is critical. Above all, maintaining a positive mindset and passion for the work is essential to handling the stress. I always keep in mind a quote from the Dalai Lama: “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.” Every small effort counts, especially when united with like-minded collaborators.
Q: What more can governments do to support transparency and accountability?
A: Transparency alone has its limitations. Governments must also implement and enforce policies that make reliable, valuable data accessible. Digital tools, social media, and collaborative platforms offer great potential for broad participation in decision-making and improving transparency and accountability, while AI and data analytics can guide consensus through evidence-based approaches. I believe that achieving meaningful consensus in a fragmented digital landscape requires careful attention to transparency, inclusivity, and combating misinformation. It’s my hope that in this case all stakeholders will collectively work to promote impactful openness and good governance.
But access isn’t enough—it’s vital to communicate openly about why transparency matters and how it benefits everyone. With digital tools, we now have an unprecedented ability to disclose information rapidly, though this can also create risks of misinformation. Data users must act responsibly to safeguard privacy. For true transparency, all stakeholders —governments, CSOs, and the public— must work together, guided by ethical standards and a shared commitment to integrity.
Delgermaa Boldbaatar (Degie) is a graduate student at Georgetown University, pursuing an MA in Communication, Culture, and Technology. Her current research focuses on consensus-building in strategic mining and infrastructure projects in the era of digitalization and propaganda. She has dedicated 14 years to promoting transparency, accountability, and collective governance in the mining sector through her work with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and the International Finance Corporation’s "From Disclosure to Development" programme in Mongolia. Her efforts have advanced open data accessibility and usability, helping local communities better understand the economic, social, and environmental impacts of mining projects through trustworthy, data-driven storytelling and innovative engagement events.
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