Child Money and Food Stamps: A comparative analysis of Mongolian welfare programmes in the Ger Districts of Ulaanbaatar

Abstract Until recently, the Mongolian welfare system was entirely category based. However, a new food stamps programme funded by loans from the Asian Development Bank, which targets aid according to proxy means testing, has been introduced as part of the bank’s aim to push Mongolia towards a fiscally sustainable welfare model. The food stamps programme is presented as efficient and responsible in contrast to Mongolia’s universal child money programme. Based on long-term participant observation research in the ger districts of Ulaanbaatar, areas inhabited by many rural-urban migrants living in poverty, this paper compares the two programmes, interweaving street-level accounts of the experiences of residents and bureaucrats alike with the respective histories and funding sources of the two programmes. Doing so provides a multi-level analysis of the emergent welfare state in Mongolia, unpicking the ‘system’ that ger district residents encounter, linking the relative influence of international financial institutions to democratic and economic cycles, and offering a critique of the supposed efficiency of targeted welfare programmes.