Mongolia

Pastoralism forms an intrinsic part of the nation’s identity, and as recently as 2000 half of the country’s workforce were nomadic herders (as of 2019, it is about one quarter). 72 per cent of the country is publicly-owned pasture land, and questions of land use, ownership, possession, and conservation have long been key sites of political contestation. These conflicts were exacerbated by the mining boom, which pits traditional pastoralism against the economic benefits of intrusive mining projects and has also seen nomadic herders take up small-scale artisanal mining to preserve a non-sedentary way of life. The wealth of the boom remains unevenly distributed, with the state continuing to work to both balance conflicting rural economic priorities and combat pervasive poverty among the hundreds of thousands of new residents of the capital.   

The mining sector has been marred by corruption from the time mineral deposits were discovered, with more recent public protests around corruption allegations in the coal industry. These issues are set in the broader context of increasing lack of public trust in government – the younger generation is increasingly frustrated by economic inequalities and the lack of economic opportunity, culminating in mass youth-led protests in April 2022. Mongolia has also experienced relative political instability, an issue various parties have sought to address through constitutional amendments changing vote allocations, the number of parliamentarians in the Cabinet, and the balance of power between the president and the prime minister, notably in 2019 and most recently in 2022. 

While female unemployment rates have been low in comparison to the male unemployment rates, women at work still face sexual harassment and pay inequity at disproportionate rates in Mongolia. A United Nations survey from 2017 found “extremely high rates of intimate partner and non-partner violence against women” across the country. Women’s political participation has increased in recent elections, but at 17 per cent, women’s representation in parliament remains slightly below regional and global averages. 

In the next several years, it will be important to watch Representative Government and the ways in which the government addresses public demands for more diverse representation. It will also be important to watch the country’s relations with China, which has been the nation’s largest source of investment and trade in the last two decades. The performance with regard to Absence of Corruption will also be impacted by recent efforts to increase transparency in the mining sector and other legal and policy commitments in 2023 to combat corruption.