This poverty assessment for Mongolia provides recent trends in monetary and non-monetary aspects of poverty and establishes baseline poverty information based on the first nationally representative household survey. It also analyzes poverty related issues in selected sectors - livestock, education, and energy - to inform implementation of the government's programs and long-term strategy and discusses cross-cutting issues - social assistance programs and institutional weaknesses -that are relevant for poverty reduction.
FACTS
Both monetary and non-money-metric poverty has fallen in recent years.
Headcount poverty declined between 1998 and 2005.
Living standards have improved for the poor.
36 percent of the population—or about 900,000 people—were still poor in 2002.
The poor tend to be rural, depend on livestock, have more children but only lower secondary or less schooling, and spend a large part of their incomes on heating.
SECTOR-SPECIFIC CHALLENGES Livestock
Mortality risk is widespread and idiosyncratic or localized shocks are prevalent; the remedy involves both risk-reducing measures and targeted coping strategies. A quarter of the herders has unsustainably small herd size and is chronically poor;
>>> they need to be persuaded to pursue other livelihood options. Education
The problem is mainly rural: children tend to be left out of upper secondary schooling because of a combination of lack of access, poor educational quality, and poverty.
>>> Aligning incentives for teachers and revising resource allocating formula to favor rural schools, and targeting public assistance directly can help poor rural children. Energy
The problem is mainly urban: heating expenditure is an acute problem for Ulaanbaatar poor ger households.
>>> A one-time trading-in of inefficient stoves for efficient stoves can address both heating needs of the poor and negative externalities of pollution from dirty fuel. CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES Social Assistance
Social assistance programs do not particularly benefit the poor because of large leakage to the non-poor and substantial exclusion of the poor.
>>> A universal campaign to register and distribute a smart national identity card, free of charge to all will remove a stumbling block for the poor to access public assistance. Institutions
Governance and institutional weaknesses underlie failures of sector-specific policies as well as social assistance programs in reaching the poor.
>>> More attention should be given to implementation and consistency of policies, reducing turnover of civil service after elections, and better donor coordination. PRINCIPAL POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS Ensure consistent and comparable poverty estimates in subsequent years.
Assist those relying on livestock to cope with risk, raise productivity, or move to
more sustainable livelihoods.
Address weaknesses in implementation to improve targeting of national social
safety net programs.
Remove rural bottlenecks in the transition between lower and upper secondary
education.
Provide incentives to improve heating practices of the urban poor.
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