This book contains an analysis of the economic problems encountered in Mongolia during the transition from a centrally planned to a market economy, when poverty increased dramatically, unemployment rose sharply, health and education indicators deteriorated, and the economic and social position of women declined. Yet there is considerable potential in Mongolia for a broadly based acceleration of output, particularly if priority is given to the nomadic livestock sector and to grass-roots development at the provincial level. The book contains many policy suggestions intended to promote growth and employment and to reduce poverty.

This book explores the issue of gender inequality through the lens of the Millennium Development Goals, particularly the first one of halving world poverty by 2015.

The 'feminisation of poverty' is viewed as a global trend, and of particular concern in developing regions. Yet although popularisation of the term may have raised women's visibility in development discourses and gone some way to 'en-gender' policies for poverty reduction, the construct is only weakly substantiated. This work covers this topic.