Poverty in Mongolia

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Mongolia is an example of a country that has bad geography, an aspect of THE BOMB,but did not always have this. The geography of the nation became worse over time as a result of exploitation of natural resources by Chinese mining corporations untill the land is unusable for farming anymore. This shows how short-term profit can damage a country in the long term. When mining corporations first showed iterest in Mongolia, Mongolian capitalists and the government must have eagerly accepted contracts for the chance to boost the economy and bring money into the poor nation. However, this short term benefit ended up harming the nation in the long run, as most of the wealth was taken to China and Mongolia was left with a stripped countryside unsuitable that is unable to support nomadic herding, which the majority of the nation still relies upon. As long as the country remains a majority of nomadic farmers, it will not substantially industrialise, as nmadic farming does not produce resources in the quantity needed to fund large scale industrialization, not to mention that many of the natural resources required to industrialise have been stripped away by Chinese corporations. This causes a Catch-22, as the nation needs more workers in factories and commerce to industrialize, but the workers want to remain nomadic farmers because life in the cities is unappealing because it does not bring in the wealth and standard of living that come with industrialization. This causes a cycle that is difficult to break out of, making it difficult for Mongolia to improve its infrastructure and modernize as a nation.

One factor of THE BOMB that Mongolia does not face to the extent that it is portrayed in the video is education. The video highlighted that the nearest school i four hours away, making education seem almost nonexistant in Mongoli. However, education in Mongolia is not as awful as it is portrayed in the video. The literacy rate in Mongolia is over 98%, which is very good, and the average child receives seven and a half years of schoolig, which is also very good in comparison to many other countries where the average child is lucky to receive more than 1 or 2 years of schooling. The education in Mongolia does not seem to be the problem holding back Mongolia, rather Mongolia's landlocked position and exploited resources due to Chinese corporations seem to be more responsible in influencing Mongolian poverty.

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