Ending poverty in Mongolia: From socialism to social development

While recent literature on social welfare has included A sian countries, less is known about low‐income and former socialist countries in C entral A sia. This article combines a documentary‐historical method with a value‐critical approach to analyze M ongolia's social policy response to poverty. M ongolia is unique in A sia because it transformed from nomadic pastoralism to socialism without a phase of capitalist industrial development. The case study found that M ongolia lost social welfare when it transitioned from socialism, a statist model, to market liberalism and multiparty democracy. In the 21st century, M ongolia has been aspiring to promote social development by redirecting mining revenues to a human development fund. M ongolia is potentially an exemplar of social development strategies affirmed at the U nited N ations C onference for S ocial D evelopment ( Rio +20) regarding a green economy for inclusive growth and poverty elimination. Future social welfare research should consider the importance of sustainability. Key Practitioner Message: ● Global standards for tracking poverty alleviation will be integrated with sustainability measures beginning in 2015; ● Mongolia hopes to foster social development and sustainable livelihoods by reinvesting revenues from mining into human capital and health care; ● To sustain future generations, social policy needs to consider the relationship between natural capital, social capital, and financial capital .