A new report from the World Bank suggests changes to Mongolia's social protection system to better support vulnerable populations against climate and economic shocks. The report, titled "Assessing the Adaptability of Social Protection and Enhancing Herder Resilience Against Climate Shocks in Mongolia," highlights the susceptibility of both urban and rural areas in Mongolia to climate events like dzud, floods, and other disasters.
Dzud, a climatic phenomenon marked by summer droughts followed by harsh winters, threatens livestock and the economic stability of herding families. The report warns that the frequency and intensity of dzud and urban flooding are expected to rise in the coming years. Vulnerable groups will face significant impacts, making an effective response crucial for strengthening community resilience.
"Mongolia’s social protection system has demonstrated its capacity to expand during shocks, as evidenced by its effective response to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, further enhancements are necessary to improve the adaptability of social protection to economic and climate-induced challenges and support vulnerable populations more effectively,” said Taehyun Lee, World Bank Country Manager for Mongolia.
The report outlines several recommendations aimed at enhancing Mongolian households' adaptive capacity through social protection measures. These include integrating adaptive social protection principles into legal frameworks for social assistance, incorporating these strategies within national and local disaster risk management plans, developing a comprehensive disaster risk financing strategy with guidelines for financing adaptive social protection, investing in technical solutions for data exchange and analytics to identify vulnerable households accurately and timely, offering herders advance lump-sum payments of social assistance benefits before dzud occurs, and enhancing the Local Livelihood Support Council's role so it can extend existing social assistance programs' coverage to aid vulnerable herder households post-dzud.