Mauritania - Islamic Development Bank

the vulnerability created by the dependency on
aid. Foreign aid has also reduced the incentives
to improve the efficiency of public policies.
Social and governance indicators show that
natural resource rents and aid flows have not
efficiently contributed to economic development
in Mauritania. In 2006, for example, Mauritania
devoted only 2% of its GDP to education, while
this share reached 6% of GDP in Morocco. Foreign
aid has also many similarities to rents from
natural resource extraction and thus has added to
governance issues, as reflected in Table 4 which
shows Mauritania poor performance relative to
its neighboring countries in the region.
4. Key Constraints to Economic Growth in the
Medium Term
21. The lack of progress in developing human
capital is a critical medium- and long-term
constraint to development in Mauritania. As
noted above Mauritania ranks low (154 out of
182 countries) on the Human Development Index
in 2009. Recent domestic and external shocks
have slowed growth and progress on poverty
Rule of Law
Regulatory
Quality
TABLE 4: Governance Index
Government
Effectiveness
reduction and with it, many related aspects of
human development, despite some achievements
in other goals, mainly in basic education. Thanks
to the support of the international community,
Mauritania has been able to achieve some
progress in fighting against HIV/Aids, Tuberculosis
and Malaria. However, maternal and infant
mortality rates are alarming as noted above. Also
while there have been important achievements
in the area of basic education, there remain
pronounced disparities between regions--the
gross enrolment rate in basic education in rural
areas (estimated at 79.6% in 2008) is still below
that in urban areas (estimated at 108.5%). The
population in poor regions or “Wilayas” has half
the enrollment in their richer counterparts. At the
same time, the key role played by manufacturing
sector in capacity building and skills development
is conspicuous by its absence in Mauritania given
the negligible size of this sector and the lack of
employment opportunities, as noted above.
22. The extraction of natural resources (iron
ore, fisheries and recently oil) purely for
obtaining rents without further processing
or added value limits the benefits to the rest
of the economy. Almost all export earnings in
Mauritania emerge from the extraction and export
of natural resources –iron ore, copper, gold, oil,
and fisheries—and primarily from iron ore and
fisheries—see table 5. This has created a high and
sustained level of economic rents. However, this
created several challenges. First, the existence
of the windfall income has helped increase
Government revenue, it has also created wellknown
governance problems associated with the
lack of transparency and the distribution of these
rents as noted by analysis done by independent
Political
Stability No
Violence
Voice and
Accountability
Overall Index
2009 1996 2009 1996 2009 1996 2009 1996 2009 1996 2009 1996
BURKINA FASO -0.3 -0.3 -0.1 -0.2 -0.7 -0.9 -0.1 -0.2 -0.3 -0.3 -1.9 -2.2
MALI -0.4 -0.6 -0.4 0.1 -0.8 -1.5 -0.3 0.7 0.2 0.7 -2.4 -1.0
MAURITANIA -0.8 -0.9 -0.7 -1.1 -0.9 .. -1.2 0.6 -1.0 -1.0 -5.2 -2.4
MOROCCO -0.2 0.1 0.0 0.3 -0.1 0.2 -0.4 -0.5 -0.8 -0.6 -1.7 0.0
TUNISIA 0.2 -0.2 0.1 0.7 0.4 0.5 0.2 0.0 -1.3 -0.9 -0.3 -0.1
Source: World Bank 2010.
MCPS for Mauritania, 2011-2015 7