The World Bank in Mauritania

Mauritania is essentially a desert country, with vast expanses of pastoral land and only 0.5% of arable land. The population is about 4.9 million (2023), and the density of 5 inhabitants per square kilometer makes it one of the least densely populated countries in the world. Further, more than half of Mauritanians live in urban areas (61.2%) (2023).

Political Context

Mauritania’s political cycle will end by mid-2024, with presidential elections due in June 2024. Prime Minister Mohamed Ould Bilal, who took office in August 2020, has been leading the implementation of President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani’s Programme prioritaire élargi du Président de la République. The program, whose priorities are among education and social justice, gives a key role to private sector and a better development of Mauritania's potential in natural resources.

Economic Overview

• Real GDP growth is estimated to have moderated to 3.4% in 2023 down from 6.4% in 2022, reflecting a significant contraction of public investment and a slowdown in exports due to lower industrial production. Average inflation halved from its peak of 9.5% in 2022 to 5% in 2023 and is expected to further decrease to 2.5% in 2024.
• The overall fiscal deficit improved to 2.4% of GDP in 2023 compared to 3.7% of GDP in 2022, driven by a fall of capital expenditure. The debt to GDP ratio slightly increased to 48.1% of GDP in 2023 (+0.8 percentage point of GDP), due to the depreciation of exchange rate at the end of 2023. According to the December 2023 joint IMF/WB’s Debt Sustainability Assessment, external debt remains sustainable, and the risk of debt distress moderate.
  
• The current account deficit has improved to 10% of GDP in 2023, down from 16.6% of GDP in 2022, due to lower imports of capital goods in the extractive industry, oil and foods products. The Mauritanian Central Bank's foreign exchange reserves rose from 4.5 months of goods imports in 2022, to 6 months in 2023.The current account deficit was mainly financed by Foreign Direct Investment in the extractive industry and budget support from various technical and financial partners. 

Medium-Term Outlook

The medium-term outlook is broadly favorable but subject to downside risks. Over 2024-2026, growth should average 4.9% (3.1% per capita) supported by the launch of gas production in the second half of 2024, sustained private consumption and investment as prices return to pre-crisis levels, higher exports, and the implementation of the government’s public investment program. Average inflation will further fall and reach 2.5% in 2024, as external pressures ease, and stabilize around 2% in 2025 and 2026. The current account balance should improve, reaching 8.5% of GDP in 2024 and average 6.7% of GDP in 2025-2026, driven by gas exports, lower imports in the extractive industry and lower import prices. Fiscal pressures should ease, leading to an average budget deficit of 2% of GDP in 2024, supported by gas revenue, lower current transfers, and greater mobilization of tax revenues. In 2026, the fiscal deficit is projected to narrow to 0.2% of GDP. Debt should gradually decline to 47.7% of GDP in 2024. Risks to the outlook stem from a slowdown in Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) inflows due to a delay in the second and third phases of the gas extraction project, as well as vulnerabilities to climatic shocks, and regional insecurity.

Social Context

COVID-19 negative impacts on the economy had repercussions on the labor market and on the living conditions and well-being of the population. Extreme poverty is estimated to have increased due to the pandemic, reaching 6.3% in 2022.

According to Mauritania’s Human Capital Index (HCI), a child born today will only achieve 38% of his/her productivity in adulthood. Expected years of schooling adjusted for learning are 4.2 years per child on average, while 25% of children are stunted, against a background of relatively low public spending on health and education. Social Assistance spending is high for the region (7.5% of GDP), and the existing safety nets programs reach 47% of the poorest quintile of the population - one of the highest coverages in the region. (Also see ‘Results’ section.)

Last Updated: Mar 19, 2024

The World Bank celebrated in 2024 sixty years of partnership with the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, which began in 1964 with the construction of Nouakchott-Rosso Road support. The partnership was guided by the 2018 Country Partnership Framework (CPF), reviewed in 2021 and which objective is to support the creation of conducive conditions for sustainable and inclusive growth (FY18-23). The World Bank in Mauritania has now started to work on the new CPF.

Under the CPF framework, and aligned with the Government’s development priorities, the World Bank's support in Mauritania focuses on Human Development (Health, Nutrition and Population), Sustainable Development (Agriculture and Food), and Infrastructures development (Energy and Extractives). The Bank’s portfolio in Mauritania currently comprises eight national projects and nine regional operations, for an overall commitment of $852 million.

Growing commitments are expected with a pipeline of new operations in health, energy, and social protection. The commitments of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank, totaled $56,5 million, while the gross commitments of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) amounted to $300 million as of February 29, 2024.

Last Updated: Mar 19, 2024

Local Government Development Program

The Decentralization and Productive Intermediate Cities Support Project contributes to the development of selected intermediate cities in the South and East and technical support to the decentralization process. It is financed with $66 million from the International Development Association (IDA), and support totaling $5 million from the State budget. The project directly impacts (i) the population of the cities and surrounding rural areas of Rosso, Kiffa, Selibaby, Aioun, and refugees and host communities of the M’bera Camp, Bassikounou, Nema, and Adel Bagrou will get improved access to urban services or electricity from renewable energy sources; (ii) over 140 formal enterprises and 11,000 informal and social actors will have improved access to infrastructure and services to grow their businesses; and (iii) staff and elected representatives of local institutions whose capacity will be reinforced. 

Breaking the Cycle of Intergenerational Poverty

The Social Safety Net System Project supports the government’s social protection strategy aimed at protecting poor and vulnerable households and investing in their human capital, breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty. The project supports three key instruments:

• The Social Registry, launched in 2016, seeks to support the identification of potential beneficiaries and provide an efficient, transparent mechanism for targeting the poor and vulnerable. In 2023, more than 225,855 households are included in the register. More information: http://www.rs.gov.mr 
• The National Social Transfer Program, Tekavoul, is a conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, targeting households in extreme poverty. The five-year cycle consists of quarterly cash transfers conditioned on beneficiaries’ participation in social promotion activities designed to increase knowledge of essential family practices (Pratiques Familiales Essentielles, PFE) and investment in early childhood development (ECD).  The program currently supports 98,235 beneficiary households, i.e. 540,298 poor or extremely poor individuals, of which 47,000 are supported by the social safety net system support project and the rest by the Mauritanian Government's own financing. The selected households receive a quarterly allowance of 2900 MRU or 76 dollars. To find out more: http://www.tekavoul.gov.mr/
• Since 2017, the shock-responsive safety net program, Elmaouna, has provided support to several thousands of households experiencing food insecurity during the period preceding the harvest. 65,000 vulnerable households during the 2022 lean season are benefiting from it and a Tekavoul vertical and horizontal extension pilot project.

The World Bank is supporting Mauritania to develop its low-emissions hydrogen industry, as the country could be a global leader in the nascent hydrogen industry. 

The approach being considered is designed around a series of projects with the overarching goal to support the country in realizing its natural resource potential. The first project aims at identifying integrated value chain opportunities across multiple sectors (renewables, hydrogen, mining) in the domestic market and for export. For this purpose, the potential and feasibility of these integrated value chains will be assessed, and an accommodating environment will be established (legal, regulatory and institutional framework as well as the workforce capacity) to enable the country to fully benefit from the combined potential of its natural resources. Mauritania’s solar and wind power potential lends itself to green hydrogen production as the abundant renewable energy sources can be used for electrolysis. Due to its favorable environment Mauritania is ideally positioned to become a global leader in the nascent hydrogen industry. The mining sector will strongly benefit from domestic hydrogen supplies, which could be used for energy intense processes and help create low-carbon products while keeping a bigger part of the value chain in the country.

Promoting Women’s Empowerment in the Sahel

The Sahel Women's Empowerment and Demographics Project (SWEDD) aims to boost the level of empowerment of women and adolescent girls and expedite demographic transition in the region. The project targets girls aged 10 to 19 at a higher risk of early marriage and motherhood and supports them through a package of evidence-based, age-appropriate interventions to end harmful practices, improve their life skills, keep them in school, and boost their earning potential. The Mauritania SWEDD received a total of $77 million in financing, with $2 million coming from the State budget and $60 million from an additional IDA grant.

Supporting the resilience of pastoralists and agro-pastoralists in the Sahel

The Regional Sahel Pastoralism Support Project (PRAPS) stemming from the Nouakchott Declaration (Oct. 2013) addresses key drivers of vulnerability of (agro) pastoral populations in the Sahel to strengthen their resilience through interventions improving animal health, natural resources management, livestock value chain development, and social and economic inclusion targeting particularly women and youth. The livestock sector is critical to the economy, rural development, and poverty reduction, contributing between 14-16% of GDP in Mauritania. More than 1.35 million persons are expected to benefit from the second phase of the project (2022-2027) in the country, totaling $45 million of IDA financing.

An additional financing amounting to $42 million to PRAPS-MR was also approved in June 2022 to support short-term recovery and scale up resilience interventions in the face of the severe food insecurity situation. This will benefit at least 326,000 people in the targeted area, i.e., the southern border strip with Mali.

Last Updated: Mar 19, 2024

Mauritania receives external financial assistance from various external organizations such as the African Development Bank, European Union, United Nations, bilateral donors, and the International Monetary Fund. It also receives financial assistance from Arab funds and China.

Last Updated: Mar 19, 2024