SDGs Progress in Mongolia

Mongolia, with a land area of about 1.6 million sq. km. and a population of about 3.2 million is the world’s most sparsely populated country. But, almost half of the population lives in Capital city, Ulaanbaatar.
While experiencing rapid urbanization, Semi-nomadic and pastoral livelihoods continue to prevail in rural areas.
Mongolia is a multi-party state and is a semi-presidential representative democratic republic with the executive power in the country being exercised by the Government.
The country is a lower-middle-income, landlocked, and resource-rich open economy that is in transition. These features also affect the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals

Working Method We are using google drive for data storage and link the data to this Colab platform. For map database we are using one that is provided from SAS ODA database.

Data sources Sustainable Development Report (SDR) 2021, UN SDGs Tracker, World Bank Data, National Statistics Office of Mongolia (1212.mn).

Limitation In completion of our databases, we found some data are limited and therefore creating some gaps within our scope of study. For example, most of the data available are only until year 2018 and 2019.

Most of the comparison for Mongolia analysis are using Central Asia and Eastern Asia countries. Even though technically Mongolia exist within East Asia, the characteristics of Mongolia as a country is closer to Central Asia Region because of economic level and geographical aspects. All of the CA countries are landlocked and having no access to the ocean, as Mongolia is. In that regard, there are no result of Goal 14 "Life Below Water".

SDG Performance

The Parliament of Mongolia adopted the Sustainable Development Vision-2030 in 2016, a strategic policy document on the country’s development priorities for the next 15 years with 4 main directions: economic, social, environmental and governance.
Mongolia ranks 106th out of 165 countries in the SDG Index in 2021. The SDG index score is 63.8, which is not significant change from the previous year. Considering the average performance of each goal, zero hunger, industry, innovation and climate action were the worst last year.

SDG 1 : No Poverty

End poverty in all its forms everywhere

Poverty score by country

In terms of poverty, this picture shows that Mongolia is 8.64 percentage higher than the Central Asian average. But Poverty rates vary between urban, rural and regional areas and one in three people lives below the national poverty line.
Poverty headcount ratio has been declining since 2016 and will drop to 0.19 percent in 2021. But Poverty rates vary between urban, rural and regional areas and one in three people lives below the national poverty line.

Poverty ratio, percent living on less than 5.50 USD a day at 2011 international prices, from 2011 to 2020: For that indicator, the average value for Mongolia during that period was 26.4 percent with a minimum of 18.2 percent in 2014 and a maximum of 31.9 percent in 2011. The latest value from 2020 is 27.8 percent.

SDG 2 : Zero Hunger

End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture

Prevalence of undernourishment

On 2021 index score of Goal 2: Zero Hunger, compared to these countries, our country has the lowest score of 41.55.
Goal 2 “Zero Hunger” is “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture”. Rather than extreme hunger, Micronutrient deficiencies are widespread and are particularly notable among children and pregnant women in Mongolia.
Some indicators, such as the prevalence of obesity and human trophic levels, contribute to lowest score. Recent years, the prevalence of obesity is high and increasing. It tends to grow like any other country.

SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being

Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

Life expectancy

As for the third goal, also we are seeing again that Mongolia has the worst performance. Even though Maternal and Mortality among children has decreased, Infectious diseases and non-communicable diseases remain areas of concern.
And life expectancy steadily from 60.5 years in 2000 to 70.7 years in 2020, up by 10.2 years.
Female life expectancy is almost 10 years more than male's, which is twice the world average. The lower growth in overall male life expectancy may be associated with factors specific to men, such as health risks from alcohol and tobacco use, unbalanced diets, and a lack of physical activity.

SDG 4: Quality Education

Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong education for all

School enrollment

The most achieved goal by Mongolia among the SDGs is Goal 4 of Quality Education. Compared to selected countries, it is the highest in Central Asia and close to the East Asian average.
School enrollment rate is high and more than 98 percent of Mongolia's population 15 years old and above are literate. Nine years of compulsory education is nearly universal in Mongolia.
Tertiary enrollment is also increasing year by year. According to this indicator, Mongolia is second in this graph behind the South Korea.

SDG 5: Gender Equality

Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

Ratio of female-to-male mean years of education received

Mongolia has made steady progress towards improving gender equality in the past. For instance, women's participation in economic, social and political life has improved, and women's share is nearly double that of men.
But we still face some challenges. For example, women are better educated but participate less in paid work on average. And their share in higher decision-making positions remains lower than men’s.

SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation

Ensure availabilty and sustainable management of water and sanitation

Clean water and sanitation score is quite close to Central asian. But at least the population using basic sanitation is very low.
Due to the nomadic lifestyle 49.6 percent of all households live in traditional house that is named "Ger". People who live in Ger are not connected to drinking water supply and centralized sewerage systems. Which means that access to safe drinking water and sanitary facilities is inadequate.

SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy

Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

Energy consumption

Affordable and clean energy is one of the biggest challenges facing Mongolia. The country’s high energy needs because of its long heating season, make Mongolia one of the most energy-intensive countries in the world. As we can see in this graph Mongolia is much lower than in other countries.
Renewable energy consumption is only 3.4 percent. Energy is overwhelmingly coal-based. In other words, based on non-renewable sources. Overall, 80 percent of electricity supply is from domestic energy production and 20 percent is imported from Russia and China.

SDG 8: Decent Jobs and Economic Growth

Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

In terms of decent work and economic growth scores, Mongolia is 4.4 percent higher than the Central Asian average. But the mining sector alone accounts for 24 percent of GDP. Due to fluctuations in world commodity prices and excessive dependence on the mining sector, Mongolia's economic growth has been unstable.
Even in years of economic growth, there are still no positive results in unemployment rate. Which means that economic growth has not translated into employment opportunities.

Even with a nomadic culture, the high percentage of population with financial account may be interesting. The reason is that 2.6 million of the population receives social welfare services. They must have a bank account to receive welfare money

SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

Build resilient in infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

Mongolia is in second place among these Central Asian countries for industry, innovation and infrastructure score, behind Kazakhstan. But, it looks very poor compared to developed countries. The industrial sector base remains narrow and largely low-tech in Mongolia. The share of research and development expenditures in GDP at 0.1 in 2018 is not enough to produce significant results. While South Korea spent 4.8 percent.

Manufacturing value added per capita is rising to 10.7 percent, but it remains the lowest compared to other countries.

SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities

Reduce inequality within and among countries

Reduced inequality score is Kyrgyzstan has the highest score of 89.1, while Mongolia has 70.4 percent.
During the past 10 years of relatively high economic growth, the living standards of people with lowest 20 percent of consumption have changed very little, which indicates that inequality has not been affected . These disparities are directly linked to extreme climatic conditions, distance from city centers, and insufficient infrastructure and social services.

SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable

For Sustainable cities and communities, we see that Mongolia has an absolute low rate from other countries.
In winter, temperatures drop to -40 degrees Celsius and heating takes more than six months, creating additional energy demand. On the coldest days of the year, daily average of PM2.5 pollution levels reach 687 micrograms per cubic meter — 27 times the level WHO recommends as safe. Air pollution in Ulaanbaatar has escalated to alarming levels

SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production

Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

Mongolia also has a very poor performance in terms of responsible consumption and production. Although Mongolia is one of the few countries in the world that has retained its relatively pristine natural environment, its economy, based on urbanization, industrialization, and natural resources, has led to ecosystem imbalances in some areas. It can be concluded that a behavior of sustainable and responsible consumption has not been developed yet.
Lately, deserts are expanding, the population is growing, per capita consumption is increasing, the volume of livestock and cattle is growing and bio diversity is depleting at ever faster rates.

SDG 13: Climate Action

Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

Mongolia is one of the most vulnerable countries to long term impacts of climate change. It also has the lowest climate action performance.
CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion very high. These coal-based emissions are more concentrated in urban areas where population density is higher and the adverse impacts on health are greater.

SDG 15: Life on Land

Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and reserve land degradation and halt biodiversity loss

Mongolia has the highest score on Goal 15: life on land. This is due to the fact that the area that is protected in terrestrial sites important to biodiversity is consistently increasing year by year.

SDG 16: Peace and Justice-Strong Institutions

Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive instructions at all levels

Following political instability, policy instability has become a habit, which negatively affects the idea of sustainable development.
Public trust towards law enforcement organizations has deteriorated. Deterioration in public trust is due to corruption cases and weak accountability and transparency in public institutions. Mongolia has been continuously unsuccessful in improving its ranking on corruption, it is still 37 percent.

SDG 17: Partnership to Achieve the Goal

SDG Score of Central Asia Countries and Mongolia

: Correlation Analysis with Regression Method

In this matrix we can see in Central Asia countries and Mongolia, there are several goals that has high level of correlation with each other such as: Goal 1 (Poverty) and Goal 8 (Work and Economic Growth); Goal 7(Energy) and Goal 11 (Cities); Goal 12 (Consumption) and Goal 2 (Hunger); & Goal 12 and Goal 13 (Climate).

Based on data available regarding CO2 emission and respiratory health cases in Mongolia, with regression value of 0.50, they simply do not correlate with each other.

It may have seemed happened because of several reasons:

Difference in time of effect. The increasing of CO2 emissions today does not necessarily mean that the cases and deaths of respiratory diseases will increase in the same years. It may need several years for it to show its impact to health.
Lack of necessary data and research.

Conclusion

Mongolia has made significant progress during the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly, related to social goals such as education, health, gender and peace and justice.
While the government has paid too much attention to economic issues and neglected environmental issues.
Therefore, Mongolia must identify and give priority to the implementation of the SDGs, related to the environment goals.
There is still room for SDG to identify development opportunities based on strengths, mitigate weaknesses, and reduce risks. We have the resources to move from a mining-based economy to an intellectual knowledge-based economy, and we need to invest more in science and research.
Finally, sustainable governance is an important step in ensuring policy sustainability and continuity