Pope Francis is set to visit Mongolia and tour the Buddhist-majority nation's capital at the government's invitation this week, becoming the first pontiff to set foot there.

Here are five things to know about Mongolia:

Landlocked Mongolia is sandwiched between Russia and China, with which it has close economic ties.

Unlike its massive neighbours, Mongolia is democratically governed, with the US-based advocacy group Freedom House describing the country's political system as "free", albeit saddled with widespread corruption.

Mongolia's head of state is President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh, a former prime minister and member of the ruling party elected to his current office in 2021.

Despite their differences, Ulaanbaatar has been careful not to upset the regional powers.

Eighty-six percent of Mongolia's total exports go to China, half of which is coal.

And Mongolia is among a handful of countries that have not explicitly condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Traditionally dependent on agriculture, the country has experienced rapid economic growth on the back of a mining boom.

Profits from coal made up a quarter of Mongolia's gross domestic product in 2022.

Mongolia is also a major exporter of copper and iron ore.

Its capital Ulaanbaatar's population has quadrupled since the 1990s, with skyscrapers sprouting up across the sprawling city.

But poverty reduction in the middle-income country has stalled in recent years and economic inequality remains high.

And the women's employment rate has dropped from 72 percent in 1992 to 53 percent, largely due to a lack of childcare options.

The once-Communist nation enshrined its first democratic constitution in 1992, when it emerged from the Soviet orbit after a popular revolution two years earlier.

It is still heavily reliant on Russian fuel, and nostalgia for Soviet times remains strong in some quarters.

But the country has sought to distance itself from its recent past, tearing down statues of Stalin and Lenin and instead turning to celebrations of Genghis Khan, who led history's largest contiguous land empire in the 13th century.

Mongolia's government adopted the Cyrillic alphabet eight decades ago when it was ruled by the Soviet-dominated regime, but now it is also backing the revival of the traditional Hudum script following a surge of interest in the nation's cultural heritage.

The country's landscape is dominated by high-altitude grasslands and populated by just over three million residents spread across an area three times the size of France.

Its people have historically been nomadic, with one-third of the population still living in communities characterised by portable yurt dwellings.

Mongolia's steppes are home to the rare Przewalski's horse, an ancient equine subspecies brought back in recent years from the brink of extinction through breeding programmes at zoos worldwide.

Mongolia has one of the world's smallest Catholic communities, estimated at just 1,500 people.

Buddhism has returned to prominence after it was suppressed under Communist rule, with over half of the population now identifying as Buddhist, according to official figures.

Deep-rooted shamanist practices are also influential in the country, with traditional rituals featuring in major festivals.

If copper mining is any indication, there’s still plenty of work to do to bring down inflation.

Cash costs at mines in Chile, the top-producing copper nation, jumped 29% in the first three months of the year compared with the same period of 2022, according to a report released Monday by government agency Cochilco.

Inflationary pressure is coming from lower ore quality, which means more rock has to be crushed to extract the same amount of metal. Other factors include pricier wages, energy and refinery fees. The cost increases would have been more severe if not for higher receivables from the sale of molybdenum and gold as byproducts.

While some of those factors have changed since the first quarter, two key cost drivers — lower ore grades and disruptions to production and projects — have continued, particularly at state behemoth Codelco.

(By James Attwood)

A new glass greenhouse is set to be constructed in Mongolia and will be completed by the end of September, providing an ideal environment for various crops throughout the year. With an area of 800 square meters, this project aims to improve agricultural practices in the country and enhance food production. The glass greenhouse will be equipped with heating systems to ensure a stable and favorable climate for plant growth, even during the harsh Mongolian winters. This technological feature will enable farmers to grow a wide range of fruits and vegetables, which were previously challenging to cultivate due to the extreme weather conditions.

One of the primary advantages of a glass greenhouse is its ability to harness solar energy efficiently. The transparent glass panels will allow sunlight to penetrate the structure, providing ample natural light for photosynthesis. This, combined with the heating system, will create an optimal environment for plants to thrive, regardless of external weather conditions.

The project is a significant milestone for Mongolia, where agriculture plays a crucial role in the economy. The glass greenhouse is expected to boost crop yields, reduce dependence on imported produce, and create new employment opportunities in the agricultural sector. Furthermore, it will contribute to the country’s efforts to achieve food security and self-sustainability.

Pope Francis is about to leave for Mongolia, a visit he has “longed for,” and one that was already contemplated in the unrealized plans of St. John Paul II, after missionaries revived a Christian community in the early 1990s. The Church that will receive the embrace of the Successor of Peter in the heart of Asia is a Church “small in numbers, but lively in faith and great in charity.” Pope Francis will meet not only the country’s 1,500 Catholics, but all the “noble” and “wise” Mongolian people with their great Buddhist tradition.

Why is the pope going to Mongolia? Why is he devoting five days of his schedule (two days of travel plus three days on the ground) to visiting such a small group of Catholics? Is “geopolitics” involved since it is a trip to a country that borders the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China? In fact, the motivation for the pilgrimage to the peripheries of Asia has no “geopolitical” implications and is certainly not the defining trait of Jorge Mario Bergoglio's pontificate.

On Monday, 30 November 1970, Pope St Paul VI made a long journey, reaching as far as the Samoan Islands in the Pacific Ocean. During the celebration of Mass in the village of Leulumoega Tuai, on the northwestern coast of the island of Upolu, he set aside the majestic “we” then used by pontiffs and said, “It is not a desire for travel nor any self-interest whatever that has drawn me to you. I come because we are all brothers and sisters; or, to put it another way, you are my sons and daughters and it is fitting that I, as father of the family that is the Catholic Church, should show each one that he has a right to equal affection. Do you know the meaning of ‘Catholic Church’? It means that the Church is for the entire world, that she is for all, that nowhere is she an alien. Each human being, whatever his or her country, race, age, or education has a place in the Church.”

The Church: a place for everyone. The Church, where the priority is not numbers and where no one is a foreigner, whatever language, culture, people, or nation they belong to. It is the Church “para todos” - for all - that Pope Francis spoke about in Lisbon. Less than a month after WYD, the Bishop of Rome is back on the road, telling his “brothers and sisters in Mongolia” that he is “happy to travel to be among you as a brother of all.”

Mongolia's Catholics - all 1,450 of them - could be squeezed standing into St. Peter's Basilica dozens of times over and their number is smaller than the congregation of a small parish in some small towns.

So why is Pope Francis, 86 and in need of a wheelchair, travelling 8,278 km (5,143 miles) to visit them this week?

Essentially, to paraphrase British climber George Mallory's response in the 1920s as to why he wanted to climb Mt. Everest, because the Catholics are there.

"I can't even fathom this," said Arvanai Hashdorj, 19, a university student who attended Mass on Sunday at the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar on Sunday. "So I am very grateful".

Hashdorj told Reuters he had recently returned from the Catholic Church's World Youth Day gathering in Lisbon, where young people from countries with millions of Catholics noted in conversations with him that the pope had not yet visited their countries.

Visiting places where Catholics are a minority is part of Francis' policy of drawing attention to people and problems in what he has called the peripheries of society and of the world.

He still has not visited most of the capitals of Western Europe.

Francis, who will be attending an inter-religious service in Mongolia, said at his weekly noon address on Sunday that he would be visiting "a Church that is small in numbers but vivacious in faith".

Last year, Francis named Archbishop Giorgio Marengo, an Italian, the first cardinal to be based in Mongolia, where he is the Catholic Church's administrator.

"The originality of this trip is related to the originality of the country sparsely populated and with such a small Catholic community," Marengo said last month in Rome.

"This shows how for him (the pope), every single member of the faithful is important," said Marengo, who has been a missionary in Mongolia for more than 20 years.

Mongolia has nine parishes, compared to 25,500 in Italy. The smallest one, hundreds of miles from the capital, has only between 30-40 members.

Still, the visit will show how far it has come since locals watched "these funny foreigners praying," Marengo said.

'GREAT RELIGIOUS TRADITION'

Francis said on Sunday that he felt honoured to visit "a noble and wise people" with a "great religious tradition".

About 60% of Mongolians identify as religious. Among those, 87.1% are Buddhist, 5.4% Muslim, 4.2% Shamanist, 2.2% Christian and 1.1% followers of other religions, according to the U.S. State Department.

There are only two native Mongolian Catholic priests.

"I wanted to show the world that there is a Catholic Church (in Mongolia) and it's beautiful," said one of them, Father Peter Sanjaajav, after saying Mass at the Cathedral the pope will visit on Saturday as part of the Aug. 31-Sept 4 trip.

The country of about 3.3 million people is strategically significant for the Roman Catholic Church because of its proximity to China, where the Vatican is trying to improve the situation of Catholics amid sometimes scratchy relations with the communist government.

Mongolia was part of China until 1921 and still has close ties with Beijing. Diplomats say it could be used as an intermediary with China.

It was not clear if any Catholics from China would be allowed to cross the border to see the pope.

China is by far Mongolia's biggest export market, buying most of its coal, copper and cashmere, and Ulaanbaatar also relies on China's rail network to deliver its goods to third countries.

Mongolia has seen a revival of Tibetan Buddhism since the collapse of the Soviet-backed Communist government in 1990, and the Dalai Lama is regarded as its main spiritual leader.

However, China has repeatedly put pressure on Mongolia not to allow the 88-year old exiled Tibetan leader to visit, branding him a dangerous separatist.

Additional reporting by David Stanway in Singapore; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan

Mongolia recently experienced torrential rain and flash flooding, which resulted in a devastating impact on its decades-old infrastructures. Thousands of homes were destroyed, tens of thousands of people were displaced and several were killed. Despite the quick response and relentless efforts of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the flooding highlighted Ulaanbaatar’s serious need to ameliorate its urban planning.

Between July 3 and August 5, Ulaanbaatar experienced intermittent heavy rain and flash floods, resulting in four deaths, including a 10-month-old baby. An estimated 31,600 families (some 128,000 people) were directly affected by the flooding. The International Federation of Red Cross based in Ulaanbaatar counted some 20,000 people displaced, and many are struggling to rebuild their lives.

According to OCHA, the U.N. arm responsible for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, “over 100 residential buildings and hundreds of traditional yurts and vehicles” flooded in Ulaanbaatar in July.

The international community is helping provide assistance. The Australian Embassy to Mongolia, the Red Cross, UNESCO, the EU’s Emergency Response Coordination Center, major businesses, and others have donated to Mongolia’s relief efforts.

Australian Ambassador to Mongolia Katie Smith pledged, “As a steadfast friend and committed third neighbor, Australia will be providing AUD 250,000 in humanitarian assistance to Mongolia through the Mongolian Red Cross Society and UNFPA Mongolia to support the flood relief efforts.” The EU is to allocate 50,000 euros in assistance to the severely hit localities, which can help 11,000 people.

As residents and businesses recover from damages, Mongolian youths set up a candlelight vigil in remembrance of the individuals who passed away during the flooding. The mayor’s office donated apartments to the families of the deceased and provided 16 furnished apartments to families left homeless.

Many residents blamed the scale of the disaster on the Mongolia capital’s poor urban planning, as well as mismanagement of funds that should have been used to fix eroded roads, bridges, and flood zones. Ulaanbaatar residents, particularly in Bayanzurkh and Sukhbaatar districts, are demanding an overhaul of city’s urban planning.

As Ulaanbaatar’s population density continues to spiral – today, one-third of Mongolia’s total population lives in the capital – the old infrastructure systems simply cannot handle day-to-day use, let alone acute disasters such as floods.

A lack of effective urban planning contributes to Ulaanbaatar’s woes, whether flood management or air pollution. This is especially true in the low-income areas and communities in ger districts, which suffer from unfinished pavements, lack of street lighting, and lack of sewage systems.

Communities living in ger districts experience the worst of Ulaanbaatar’s air pollution and lack access to clean water. This leaves them vulnerable to diseases such as tuberculosis. The International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease categorizes Mongolia as a “high-burden” country for tuberculosis, estimating the disease impacts “428 per 100,000 people.” Concerningly, an unusually high percentage of new cases are found in children – 11 percent in Mongolia, versus just 3 percent in the Western Pacific region as a whole.

Sanitation is also a major issue that urban planners and policymakers need to pay attention to. Lack of access to clean water and sewage hook-ups also contribute to disease.

Grassroots efforts are underway to spark change. Oyungerel Tsedendamba, a former parliamentarian and minister of culture, is active in promoting sanitation awareness and solutions to the decades-old problem. Organizations such as Clean Sanitation and Water for All are watchdogs for Mongolia’s sanitation and hygiene. In 2020, the organization estimated that for Mongolia to ensure 100 percent safely managed sanitation by 2030 – in both urban and rural areas – efforts need to be four times faster.

Ulaanbaatar is hit by a two-fold problem. First, there is the failure to repair existing infrastructure; second, there is a failure to provide infrastructure for new residents. This is especially problematic as Ulaanbaatar is expanding into areas that are prone to flooding.

Policy failures exacerbated the recent floods, and were also clearly visible in the government response. City workers disinfected the flood-affected streets, a necessary step to stem the spread of water-borne diseases, but claimed they were not responsible for disinfecting residential buildings and homes. As the city’s policymakers, the mayor’s office should provide both opportunities and tools for residents to disinfect. This also means that government funds need to be allocated towards flood relief tools, medical equipment, and disinfectants. Foreign governments and nonprofits are not responsible, nor are they required to assist, but thankfully they do.

Eight years ago, in 2015, Artessa Saldivar-Sali, a resilience engineering specialist at the World Bank, warned to the risk of devastating flood in Ulaanbaatar. She noted that more and more families were setting up homes on “hazardous mountain slopes and flood plains,” while the city’s drainage systems were not fit for purpose. Those trends have only continued in the past eight years.

As of 2015, “[m]ore than 200,000 people, 600 residential buildings, 31,000 gers (traditional portable dwellings used by nomads) and 109 schools, kindergartens, and medical units are located in medium to high flood hazard areas,” Saldivar-Sali wrote.

She added the flooding also risked damaging “critical infrastructures such as the high-voltage power station that sits in the middle of the Selbe river channel.” Unfortunately, the recent flood did damage the Selbe Dam. The collapse of the dam increased the flooding in Ulaanbaatar, impacting five central districts and flooding residential buildings. Social media posts illustrated the major frustration of foreigners living in central Ulaanbaatar.

Just after the flooding, on August 21, Mongolia hosted the Seventh Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum on Global Health, which consisted of representatives from around the Asia-Pacific region and the World Health Organization.

During the forum, the speaker of Mongolia’s parliament, Zandanshatar Gombojav, said that Mongolia was pursuing “health sector reforms, increasing the financing of care and services, reflecting health in policies of all sectors, and strengthening inter-sectoral collaboration as its’ core goal.” The forum discussed post-COVID relief and health, but did not devote enough attention to other critical subjects such as disaster preparedness, sanitation, and urban planning.

Moving forward, Ulaanbaatar cannot neglect the seriousness of its infrastructure mismanagement and poor urban planning, and the knock-on effects on public health. Currently, the government is making piecemeal attempts to shift things around, such as moving universities to different locations. However, the main issue lies in the need to modernize Ulaanbaatar’s infrastructure and prevent settlers from moving into flood-prone or otherwise hazardous locations.

BY Bolor Lkhaajav

Bolor Lkhaajav is a researcher specializing in Mongolia, China, Russia, Japan, East Asia, and the Americas. She holds an M.A. in Asia-Pacific Studies from the University of San Francisco.

Mongolia’s heating system is based on domestically produced coal, which provides an economical option for the supply of heating for the population. However, coal heating has resulted in high local pollution in cities, causing respiratory-related health issues.also It also hinders Mongolia’s aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and meet their Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the Paris Agreement.

Mongolia, however, has significant potential for renewable energy sources – especially wind, solar and geothermal – which could be used to meets its heating needs. This detailed renewable energy-based strategic heating plan leverages the existing district heating network in the utilisation of locally available renewable heat sources as well as renewable electricity.

The assessment comprises a detailed mapping of the heat demand of buildings and an energy system analysis of district heat supply. Energy efficiency improvement in existing and new buildings, efficient and modern heat supply networks, and the integration of renewable heat and electricity play key roles in the proposed plan, which demonstrates that a renewable energy-based heating supply is more technologically and socio-economically feasible than the current fossil-fuel based system.

See the full report at https://www.irena.org/.../Renewable-Energy-Solutions-for...

The Ministry of Construction and Urban Development, and the Kolon Global Corporation LLC of the Republic of Korea signed a Contract on the Construction Works of Solongo Affordable Housing Complex 1 and Complex 2 Projects in Mongolia yesterday.

The Contract was signed by the State Secretary of the Ministry of Construction and Urban Development G. Magnaisuren and the Vice-President of the Kolon Global Corporation LLC Jo Hyun Chul. The construction of 5,002 flats on an area of 17.5 hectares in the territory of the 21st District of Ulaanbaatar, east of the Buyant-Ukhaa Airport, will commence upon signing of the Conract with a soft loan from the Government of South Korea.

The construction of the housing complexes will be financed by a 40-year term soft loan of USD 266.9 million with an annual interest rate of 0.15 percent from the Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF) of South Korea's Eximbank and completed within 40 months.