Cooper, L.

The Policy Alternatives for Livestock Development (PALD) project was established to research and make policy recommendations on the liberalisation of the Mongolian pastoral economy and its impact within the household. The paper discusses the organisation of pastoral production at the household level from a gender perspective. The paper describes and explains the use of matrices and mobility mapping as participatory methods for gathering information on seasonal labour allocation, time use and mobility.

Wide-ranging agrarian reforms in Mongolia have led to a change in patterns of consumption. Most important of these reforms has been the dismantling of the collectivised state which formerly organised livestock and livestock product marketing, as well as the supply of flour and other food items and consumer goods. This note reports on the use of matrices as a tool for evaluating the impact of economic liberalisation on consumption patterns among Mongolian pastoral communities.