Ulaanbaatar, May 27, 2025 — A new World Bank report recommends ways to adapt Mongolia’s social protection system in order to increase the resilience of vulnerable populations to extreme weather and other widespread economic shocks. By providing support to vulnerable households affected by shocks, adaptive social protection systems can help communities maintain their wellbeing during and after crises.
According to the report, Assessing the Adaptability of Social Protection and Enhancing Herder Resilience Against Climate Shocks in Mongolia, both urban and rural areas of Mongolia are highly vulnerable to climate shocks such as dzud, floods, and other disaster risks. The dzud phenomenon, characterized by summer droughts followed by harsh winters, poses a severe threat to livestock and the economic stability of herding families. The frequency and intensity of dzud as well as urban flooding, is expected to increase over the coming years. Vulnerable populations will bear the brunt of these impacts, underscoring the need for an effective response to strengthen 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 includes several recommendations for leveraging social protection to boost the adaptive capacity of Mongolian households, including herders. Among these are:
- integrating adaptive social protection principles into social assistance legal frameworks
- incorporating adaptive social protection strategies within national and local disaster risk management plans
- developing a comprehensive disaster risk financing strategy that incorporates guidelines for financing adaptive social protection
- investing in technical solutions for data exchange and analytics to identify vulnerable households in a more accurate and timely manner
- providing herders with the option of receiving advance lump-sum payments of social assistance benefits in anticipation of dzud
- enhancing the function of the Local Livelihood Support Council so it can expand the coverage of existing social assistance programs to assist vulnerable herder households in the post-dzud period.
