Mongolia and SDG 9: Blog 8

This blog is going to be on Mongolia and the country’s focus on SDG goal no. 9. Mongolia is a landlocked country located in north-central Asia. It is roughly oval in shape, measuring 1,486 miles from west to east. It measures 782 miles from north to south. Mongolia is located between Russia to the north and China to the south. The country experiences long cold winters and short cool-to-hot summers. 68.4% of the country’s population lives in urban areas and 31.6% live in rural areas. In 2015, the literacy percentage for males was 96.4% while for women it was 97.9%. The Gross National Income (GNI) of the country is 10,100 US$ (2017) (Harris, Lattimore & Sanders, 2020).

Fig 1. One Stop Map. (n.d.). Map of Mongolia political [Image]. Retrieved on May 3, 2020, from https://www.onestopmap.com/mongolia/mongolia-11/.

Because Mongolia is a landlocked country, developing infrastructure in Mongolia will contribute to more equal delivery of social services and expansion of businesses at local levels. Expansion of transport networks will provide the basis for promoting equality in social services delivery to all parts of the population. By 2018, length of improved roads reached 10.6 kilometers and length of conventional roads reached 102.6 thousand kilometers, significantly increasing passenger and freight turnovers. In recent years, measures to develop other transport sectors have been taken. Some developments include the step-by-step introduction of competition in the aviation market, improvement of aviation safety, increased international flight routes, and renovation of airports. There has also been a word to expand railway transportation and establish logistic centers (Government of Mongolia, 2019).

Mongolia has established a monitoring, evaluation, and reporting system for SDG progress. The foundation for the monitoring and evaluation of SDG implementation is the review of MSDV-2030 on a two-yearly basis. However, the creation of a regular multi-stakeholder mechanism for monitoring and evaluation is vital for the successful implementation of the SDGs. Some reports have indicated that the performance monitoring is weak and there is no system of independent evaluation established in Mongolia. In order to address these challenges, eight government Sub-Working Groups were established to identify national SDG indicators and targets. This sets the foundation for results-based monitoring of SG targets and indicators (Government of Mongolia, 2019).

United National Mongolia. 2020. How much we need, how much we have: The UN funding gap by sustainable development goal in country: Mongolia [Image]. Retrieved on April 29, 2020 from https://mongolia.un.org/en/sdgs.

            According to the above image, Mongolia has 99.9% of the required resources for SDG 9. The annual total required resources are $3,798,870. The annual available resources are $3,795,718 (United Nations Mongolia, 2020). When it comes to climate change, Mongolia is significantly impacted by it. The frequency of natural disasters due to climate change directly affects the livelihood of people and exacerbates environmental degradation. Considering this, Mongolia is using SDGs to strengthen agreement around coordinated actions within government and different stakeholders (Government of Mongolia, 2019). With the available resources and coherent plans from the government, Mongolia has the potential to successfully implement SDG 9 with climate change in consideration.

References

Harris, C.D., Lattimore, O, and Sanders A.J.K. (2020). Mongolia. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/place/Mongolia

Government of Mongolia. 2019. Mongolia voluntary national review report 2019 [PDF File]. Retrieved from https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/23342MONGOLIA_VOLUNTARY_NATIONAL_REVIEW_REPORT_2019.pdf.

United Nations Mongolia. (2020). Our work on the sustainable development goals in Mongolia. Retrieved from https://mongolia.un.org/en/sdgs.