The 2003–2008 Country Programme (CP) for Mauritania is based on WFP’s fundamental principles concerning the use of food aid for development. In accordance with decision 1999/EB.A/2 of the Executive Board, WFP focuses its development activities on five objectives.
The present programme addresses objectives 1, 2, 3 and 4:
- enable young children and expectant and nursing mothers to meet their special nutritional and nutrition-related health needs;
- enable poor households to invest in human capital through education and training;
- make it possible for poor families to gain and preserve assets; and
- mitigate the effects of natural disasters in areas vulnerable to recurring crises of this kind.
The Programme fits into the Government’s Strategic Framework for Poverty Alleviation (SFPA), which establishes the guidelines for development policies to be followed in Mauritania. Interventions designed to achieve the CP objectives focus on three basic activities:
- support to primary education, which aims to improve school enrolment rates through school canteens (51 percent of resources);
- nutritional support to vulnerable mothers and children through a food supplement that helps reduce the incidence of malnutrition among children aged from 6 months to 5 years and expectant and nursing mothers (13 percent of resources);
- support to rural development, which uses food-for-work (FFW) activities to create community infrastructure works (small dams, dykes, vegetable plots, rural tracks) and environmental improvement and protection works (stabilization of sand dunes, reforestation) (36 percent of resources).
Countries
Mauritania, located in the arid Sahel region of West Africa, is one of the world’s least developed countries. The population numbers 3 million, and the country is ranked 137 out of 177 in the 2008 UNDP Human Development Index....
