About
Mauritania

Economy of Mauritania

A majority of the population still depends on agriculture and livestock for a livelihood, even though most of the nomads and many subsistence farmers were forced into the cities by recurrent droughts in the 1970s and 1980s. Mauritania has extensive deposits of iron ore, which account for almost 50% of total exports. The decline in world demand for this ore, however, has led to cutbacks in production. The nation's coastal waters are among the richest fishing areas in the world, but overexploitation by foreigners threatens this key source of revenue. The country's first deepwater port opened near Nouakchott in 1986. In recent years, drought and economic mismanagement have resulted in a substantial buildup of foreign debt. The government has begun the second stage of an economic reform program in consultation with the World Bank, the IMF, and major donor countries. Short-term growth prospects are poor because of the heavy debt service burden, rapid population growth, and vulnerability to climatic conditions.

GDP (at official exchange rate, 2009 est.): U.S. $3.029 billion.
Annual growth rate (2009): -0.9%.
Per capita GDP (2009): $939.
Natural resources: petroleum, fish, iron ore, gypsum, copper, gum arabic, phosphates, salt and gold.
Agriculture (13% of GDP 2007): Products--livestock, traditional fisheries, millet, maize, wheat, dates, rice.
Industry (47% of GDP 2007): Types--mining, commercial fishing.
Services (41% of GDP 2007).
Trade: Exports (2009) 1.37 billion: iron ore, fish and fish products, gold, copper, petroleum. Export partners (2007)--China 30.5%, France 9.5%, Italy 8.6%, Spain 8.5%, Japan 5.5%, Netherlands 5.3%, Belgium 5%, Cote d'Ivoire 4.7%. Imports (2009)--$1.43 billion: machinery and equipment, petroleum products, capital goods, foodstuffs, consumer goods. Import partners (2007)--France 16.7%, China 8.2%, Spain 6.8%, U.S. 6.2%, Belgium 5.8%, Brazil 5.5%.
Currency: Ouguiya (UM).
USAID: Total FY 2009 USAID humanitarian and development assistance to Mauritania--$11,100,000. 

Geography of Mauritania

Mauritania is bordered by Algeria, Mali, Western Sahara (Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic) and Senegal. To the west lies the Atlantic Ocean. Mauritania consists mainly of the vast Saharan plain of sand and scrub. Most of this area is a sea of sand dunes, but in places the land rises to rocky plateaux with deep ravines leaving isolated peaks. The Adrar plateau in the central region rises to 500m (1640ft) and the Tagant further south to 600m (1970ft). The area is scattered with towns, small villages and oases. The northern bank of the Senegal River, which forms the country's southern border, is the only area in the country with any degree of permanent vegetation and it supports a wide variety of wildlife.

Official Name: Islamic Republic of Mauritania
Area: 1,030,070 sq. km. (419,212 sq. mi.); slightly larger than Texas and New Mexico combined.
Cities: Capital--Nouakchott (pop. 612,000). Other cities--Nouadhibou (113,000), Selibaby (107,000), Kaedi (91,000), Kiffa (77,000), Rosso (63,000), Zouerate (36,000).
Terrain: Northern four-fifths barren desert; southern 20% mainly Sahelian with small scale irrigated and rainfed agriculture in the Senegal River basin.
Climate: Predominantly hot and dry. 

Government of Mauritania

Following the 2008 coup, the opposition organized under the Front National Pour la Defense de la Democratie (FNDD), an umbrella organization of anti-coup parties, and opposition leader Ahmed Ould Daddah's Rassemblement des Forces Democratiques (RFD). These groups joined forces to organize coup protests and to boycott unilateral elections organized by the junta for June 6, 2009. General Aziz governed the country at the head of the HSC until April 2009, when he resigned both from the government and the military to run for president in the controversial planned June 6 elections. Senate President Ba Mamadou M'Bare, an Afro-Mauritanian, was appointed interim President, and the HSC was relegated to a national security role. Mauritania's 10-month-long political stalemate ended with the June 4 signing of the Dakar Accord, which was brokered by Senegalese President Wade, the African Union, and the international community and signed by the three parties to the crisis--the Aziz camp, the FNDD, and the RFD. The accord called for President Abdallahi's return to form a consensual Transitional Government of National Unity and sign his resignation, which would open the way to constitutionality. The new government would organize elections on July 18 under the supervision of the international community.

After delays implementing the accord, which stemmed from disagreements about the future of the HSC, Abdallahi returned to form a Transitional Government of National Unity and resigned on June 27, 2009. In this interim government, the pro-coup camp, also known as "the majority," appointed the Prime Minister and 50% of the government, while the opposition controlled the remaining half, including the Ministry of Interior and Communications. The opposition also controlled two-thirds of the National Independent Electoral Commission. Presidential elections took place on July 18, with General Aziz scoring a first-round victory with over 53% of the popular vote. Three presidential candidates contested the result but the Government of National Unity, international observers, and the international community declared the elections free and fair.

Mauritania's government bureaucracy is composed of ministries, special agencies, and parastatal companies. The Ministry of Interior controls a system of regional governors and prefects modeled on the French system of local administration. Under this system, Mauritania is divided into 13 regions (wilaya), including the capital district, Nouakchott. Control is tightly concentrated in the executive branch of the central government, but a series of national and municipal elections since 1992 have produced some decentralization, and efforts to decentralize the government continue.

Politics in Mauritania have always been heavily influenced by the military and by "strong men" or personalities. A leader's ability to exercise political power depends upon control over resources; financial means; perceived strength; and tribal, ethnic, and family considerations. Conflict among White Moor, Black Moor, and Black African Mauritanian groups, centering on unequal access to power, language, government, education, and land tenure, continues to be a major challenge to national unity. Slavery, and the repatriation and compensation of victims from the 1989-90 purges of Afro-Mauritanians known as the "passif humanitaire," are still socio-political issues awaiting resolution, but Mauritania took several important steps toward reconciliation in 2009. On March 25, 2009, the HSC signed a framework agreement to compensate 244 widows of Afro-Mauritanian military personnel killed during the 1989-91 expulsions of Afro-Mauritanians and held a memorial for the victims on the same day. The agreement and memorial represented the authorities' first public acknowledgement of the government's role in the ethnic killings and expulsions of 1989-91. During 2009 President Aziz' government also conducted a census of former teachers among returnees in order to reinstate them in their former positions with the Ministry of Education.

Principal Government Officials
President--Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz
Prime Minister--Moulaye Ould Mohamed Laghdaf
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation--Hamadi Ould Hamadi
Minister of Economy and Development--Sidi Ould Tah
Minister of Finance--Aicha Vall Mint Michel Verges
Ambassador to the United Nations--Abdelrahim Ould Elhadrami
Ambassador to the United States--Mohamed Lemine Ould Haycen

Mauritania maintains an embassy in the United States at 2129 Leroy Place NW, Washington, DC 20008 (tel. 202-232-5700, fax. 202-232-5701) and a Permanent Mission to the United Nations at 211 East 43rd Street, Suite 2000, New York, NY 10017 (tel. 212-986-7963, fax.212-986-8419).

Government
Type: Republic.
Independence: November 28, 1960.
Constitution: Approved 1991. Original constitution promulgated 1961.
Branches: Executive--president (head of state). Legislative--bicameral national assembly, directly elected lower house (81 members), and upper house (56 members) chosen indirectly by municipal councilors. Judicial--a supreme court and lower courts are nominally independent but subject to control of executive branch; judicial decisions are rendered mainly on the basis of Shari'a (Islamic law) for social/family matters and a western style legal code, applied in commercial and some criminal cases.
Political parties: 21.
Suffrage: Universal at 18.
National day: November 28, Independence Day. 

History of Mauritania

From the 3rd to 7th centuries, the migration of Berber tribes from North Africa displaced the Bafours, the original inhabitants of present-day Mauritania and the ancestors of the Soninke. Continued Arab-Berber migration drove indigenous black Africans south to the Senegal River or enslaved them. By 1076, Islamic warrior monks (Almoravid or Al Murabitun) completed the conquest of southern Mauritania, defeating the ancient Ghana empire. Over the next 500 years, Arabs overcame fierce Berber resistance to dominate Mauritania. The Mauritanian Thirty-Year War (1644-74) was the unsuccessful final Berber effort to repel the Maqil Arab invaders led by the Beni Hassan tribe. The descendants of Beni Hassan warriors became the upper stratum of Moorish society. Berbers retained influence by producing the majority of the region's Marabouts--those who preserve and teach Islamic tradition. Hassaniya, a mainly oral, Berber-influenced Arabic dialect that derives its name from the Beni Hassan tribe, became the dominant language among the largely nomadic population. Within Moorish society, aristocratic and servant classes developed, yielding "white" (aristocracy) and "black" Moors (the enslaved indigenous class).

French colonization at the beginning of the 20th century brought legal prohibitions against slavery and an end to interclan warfare. During the colonial period, the population remained nomadic, but sedentary black Africans, whose ancestors had been expelled centuries earlier by the Moors, began to trickle back into southern Mauritania. As the country gained independence in 1960, the capital city of Nouakchott was founded at the site of a small colonial village. Ninety percent of the population was still nomadic. With independence, larger numbers of ethnic Sub-Saharan Africans (Haalpulaar, Soninke, and Wolof) entered Mauritania, moving into the area north of the Senegal River. Educated in French, many of these recent arrivals became clerks, soldiers, and administrators in the new state.

Moors reacted to this change by trying to Arabicize much of Mauritanian life, such as law and language. A schism developed between those who considered Mauritania to be an Arab country (mainly Moors) and those who sought a dominant role for the Sub-Saharan peoples. The discord between these two conflicting visions of Mauritanian society was evident during intercommunal violence that broke out in April 1989 (the "1989 Events").

The country's first president, Moktar Ould Daddah, served from independence until ousted in a bloodless coup on July 10, 1978. Mauritania was under military rule from 1978 to 1992, when the country's first multi-party elections were held following the July 1991 approval by referendum of a constitution.

The Democratic and Social Republican Party (PRDS), led by President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya, dominated Mauritanian politics from April 1992 until he was overthrown in August 2005. President Taya, who won elections in 1992 and 1997, first became chief of state through a December 12, 1984 bloodless coup which made him chairman of the committee of military officers that governed Mauritania from July 1978 to April 1992. A group of current and former Army officers launched a bloody but unsuccessful coup attempt on June 8, 2003.

On November 7, 2003, Mauritania's third presidential election since adopting the democratic process in 1992 took place. Incumbent President Taya was reelected. Several opposition groups alleged that the government had used fraudulent means to win the elections, but did not elect to pursue their grievances via available legal channels. The elections incorporated safeguards first adopted in 2001 municipal elections--published voter lists and hard-to-falsify voter identification cards.

On August 3, 2005, President Maaouya Ould Taya was deposed in a bloodless coup. Military officers, led by first cousins and tribesmen Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall and Colonel Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, staged a coup while President Taya was attending the funeral of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd. Colonel Vall established the ruling Military Council for Justice and Democracy, a military organ responsible for running the country. The council dissolved the Parliament and appointed a transitional government, which quickly adopted a timetable for the establishment of democratic rule within two years that led to successful parliamentary elections in November 2006, and free and transparent presidential elections in March 2007. A new democratically elected government under President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi--the first in 29 years--was inaugurated on April 19, 2007.

On August 6, 2008, President Abdallahi was overthrown in a bloodless coup. General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz seized power after President Abdallahi issued a decree dismissing General Aziz and three other senior military officers. The country was officially run for eight months by a 12-member High State Council (HSC) composed entirely of military officers. For the first time in the history of Mauritania, the coup encountered considerable opposition both nationally and internationally. On April 15, 2009, Aziz resigned from the government and the army and announced his presidential candidacy for elections on June 6, 2009, which were boycotted by main opposition leaders and ultimately rescheduled. A Government of National Unity was instituted on June 27, 2009, followed by President Abdallahi's voluntary resignation in compliance with the Dakar Accord negotiated under the aegis of Senegalese President Wade, the African Union, and an International Contact Group and signed on June 4. Aziz scored a first-round victory in elections organized on July 18. The results of those elections were recognized by the international community, and President Aziz was inaugurated on August 5, 2009. 

People of Mauritania

Eighty percent of the population are Moors - of Arab-Berber descent and speaking dialects of Hassaniya Arabic. Much social status is determined by derivations from either the region's Arab-Berber conquerors or the caucasoid-negroid peoples they enslaved. An aristocratic-servile status continues to define Maure (Moor) society as "white" and "black." White Moor aristocrats (bidan) tend to be more purely Arab; commoner whites tend to be more distinctly Berber in appearance and speech. Traditionally, the enslaved indigenous class came to be called black Moors. Even though slavery is officially proscribed, a servile status lingers among the lower rungs in the black social structure. Non-Moor, non-Arab or Berber-speaking black Africans, including the Toucouleur, Fulbe, Wolof, Bembara people comprise the remaining 20% of the population and tend to live in the south. Most of these groups also have hierarchical social structures, with a servile class at the bottom. Although taken together, black Moors and black Africans outnumber white Moors, black Moors identify in many ways with white Moors. All Mauritanians are Muslims.

As a result of recent endemic drought, large numbers of former nomads and oasis dwellers have migrated to urban areas (Nouakchott, Nouadhibou, Kaedi, Rosso), swelling the population of the cities and surrounding shanty towns.

Nationality: Noun and adjective--Mauritanian(s).
Population: 3,162,338.
Annual population growth rate: 2.5%.
Ethnic groups: Arab-Berber (White Moor), Arab-Berber-Negroid (Black Moor), Haalpulaar, Soninke, Wolof (Black African Mauritanians).
Religion: Islam.
Languages: Arabic (official), Hassaniya (Arabic dialect), French, Pulaar, Wolof, and Soninke.
Education: Years compulsory--six. Attendance (student population enrolled in primary school)--82%. Adult literacy (% of population age 15+)--59%.
Health: Infant mortality rate--67/1,000. Life expectancy--64 yrs.
Work force: Agriculture and fisheries--50%. Services and commerce--20%. Government--20%. Industry and transportation--10%.