|
|
Geography, agriculture, the economy and education Mongolia is a vast highland basin on the Central Asian plateau. High mountains rise in the northern and western parts of the country, and the Gobi Desert covers much of the south-east. Mongolia has a total surface area of 1.6 million km2. Population density is among the lowest in the world, with 2 people per km2. The population is growing at an annual rate of about 1.3 per cent and in 2005 is expected to reach 2.7 million. The climate is dry, with extreme winter temperatures that can plunge to 40° below zero Celsius. Ulaanbaatar, the capital, is the world’s coldest city. Summers are short and cool or even hot. Mongolia has some of Asia's richest deposits of minerals, including copper. Forests cover about 8 per cent of the country’s surface. Total forest area has shrunk by half since 1990, mainly because of illegal logging and fires. A climate of harsh extremes Mongolia's people and animals have adapted to a climate of harsh extremes. They face summer droughts and unusually severe winter conditions known as dzud, which can cause massive losses of livestock and destroy the livelihoods of thousands of families.Consecutive dzuds in the winters of 1999/2000 and 2000/2001 killed 7 million head of cattle and other livestock. Dzuds directly affect about half a million rural people. After the disastrous 1999/2000 dzuds, many rural people migrated at least temporarily to urban areas. In one year, the rural population fell by almost 10 per cent. UrbanizationA country of nomadic herding traditions, Mongolia has a highly mobile population. The distinction between urban and rural areas is not sharp. Provincial urban centres are usually small towns, with populations varying between 15,000 and 25,000. More than half of Mongolia's population is urban. Rural-to-urban migration intensifies in the wake of severe winter storms that cause drastic losses of livestock, but reverse waves of migration occur when people return to rural areas and resume herding. More than a quarter of Mongolia's inhabitants live in Ulaanbaatar, the capital. Many people live in ger settlements in the city’s outlying areas in zones that have the disadvantages of urban life, such as overcrowding and the high cost of food and services, and some of the hardships of rural life, including exposure to harsh weather conditions. Close to half the people living in these settlements are poor. 30 million head of livestock There are more than ten times as many animals as people in Mongolia, one of the world’s most sparsely populated countries, where 2.5 million people live in a territory about half the size of Europe. Some 30 million sheep, goats, horses, yaks and other animals graze on vast pasturelands covering almost four fifths of the country. Raising livestock is the major occupation of rural people and backbone of the rural economy. The livestock sector generates about 90 per cent of Mongolia's agricultural output. Agriculture accounted for about 30 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2002. The sector is growing at an annual rate of 5 per cent. Mongolia's principal economic activities are closely related to herding, which produces the raw materials, including cashmere, for other sectors to process. Mongolia formerly exported to Russia huge quantities of cereals produced on collective farms. Cereal production largely disappeared after the privatization of state farms. Farmers today grow vegetables mainly to satisfy the demand from urban areas and for their own families. After falling off by as much as seven times during the 1990s, cereal production showed signs of recovery in 2002. Inflation has dropped sharply from three-digit figures in the early 1990s to less than 10 per cent since 2000. The Government aims to achieve an annual rate of growth in GDP of no less than 6 per cent by 2008. In 2002 Mongolia's total exports were valued at US$501 million. Food and agricultural raw materials accounted for US$103 million of total exports. The trade deficit amounted to US$238 million. Mongolia imports more than it exports, and national debt (more than US$1.0 billion in 2002) is growing. Gross National income per capita presently hovers around US$400, but more than 23 per cent of Mongolia's people live on an income of less than US$0.40 a day. One of the world’s leaders in number of livestock per capita, Mongolia lags far behind other countries in efficient use of resources. Economic transitionOver the past decade or so the Government of Mongolia has undertaken the transition from a centralized to a market economy. The breakdown of industry and the public administration left many people unemployed and deprived them of a social safety net. Many migrated from urban centres to rural areas to take up herding as a means of survival. Among them, young, inexperienced herders were particularly vulnerable. In the early 1990s livestock collectives were privatized and broken up into small groups owned by herdsmen or former administrators. In rural Mongolia, where there is typically only one school in each soum, or administrative district, herders’ children may have to travel up to 300 km to receive a basic education. Families have to pay the cost of children’s food and lodging, an expense that puts an additional financial strain on poor people. In 2000, 85 per cent of rural children aged 10 to 14 attend school, compared to 95 per cent of urban children. Mongolia's high literacy rate of 99 per cent in 1989 had dropped by 4 per cent in 2000. In rural areas, many more boys than girls drop out of school, because boys can work at herding. Source: IFAD |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
email this article