37th CFS Plenary Session, 17-22 October 2011, Rome
The CFS is the United Nations' forum for reviewing policies concerning world food. It is the most inclusive international and intergovernmental platform for all relevant stakeholders to work together to ensure food security and nutrition.
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3 November 2011 – The United Nations agency helping the rural poor announced today it is awarding almost $18 million in loans and grants to Mauritania to boost the incomes and living conditions of thousands of people in the arid country.
The funding will be used to help rural households – more than half of Mauritanians are employed in agriculture – to significantly increase their production, according to a press release issued by the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
NOUAKCHOTT, March 8, 2011 – During the 1970s, Mauritania experienced a series of droughts that dealt a severe blow to its macroeconomic equilibrium. Rural populations were the hardest hit, with poverty rates averaging a record 75 percent. As a result, there was a mass exodus of men and women in search of a better life to major urban centers such as Nouakchott and Nouadhibou. However, others remained behind, because in spite of this wave of rural-urban migration, the rural sector provided employment for approximately 64 percent of the working population and was still the main source of income for Mauritanians.
November 19, 2010 - The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed its first review of Mauritania’s economic performance under a program supported by the Extended Credit Facility1 arrangement (ECF). The decision enables Mauritania to draw an additional SDR 11 million (US$17 million), bringing total disbursements under the arrangement to an amount equivalent to SDR 22 million (US$34 million). The Board's decision was taken on a lapse of time basis.
Press Release No. 10/356
September 27, 2010
An International Monetary Fund mission, led by Mr. Boileau Loko visited Nouakchott from September 15 to 26, 2010 to conduct discussions regarding the first review of the 2010–12 three-year program supported by the Extended Credit Facility (ECF). During the visit, the mission held discussions with several members of the government. In addition, the mission met with a number of economic and financial policymakers, representatives of the banking community, universities, trade unions, civil society, and the diplomatic corps. At the end of its visit, the mission issued the following statement:
June 17, 2010, Rome – FAO marks World Day to Combat Desertification today with the publication of a manual that shows how a project in Mauritania successfully fixed dunes and stopped sand encroachment.
It will serve as a useful blueprint for similar projects in Africa. Sand encroachment is what happens when grains of sand are carried by winds and collect in dunes on the coast, along watercourses and on cultivated or uncultivated land.
As the dunes move, they bury villages, roads, oases, crops and irrigation channels and dams, causing major economic damage and increasing poverty and food insecurity.
The right plants
NOUAKCHOTT, April 21, 2010 — In addition to a severe political crisis that has mired Mauritania since 2008, the global financial crisis that rocked many countries the world over in 2009 also has left its mark on Mauritania.
Ahead of the World Bank-International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings to be held in Washington, D.C. April 24 and 25, the Mauritanian Government, its technical and financial partners, academicians, lawmakers, and civil society members, are discussing the lessons learned from the crisis and possible reforms that may be implemented to prepare the country for future economic setbacks.
The report from the HLTF coordination team provides useful inputs on overall food security situation in the country. Moreover, it offers some interesting views on where the multilateral system can further support national authorities and its partners in Mauritania in addressing structural food security issues...
Read full report (French only)
9 April 2010 – Tens of thousands of children are at risk of severe malnutrition in Niger and neighbouring countries unless donors urgently provide more funds for humanitarian programmes, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned today.
Christiane Berthiaume, a spokesperson for the agency in Geneva, told reporters that UNICEF was very concerned that the ongoing drought in much of the Sahel region of Africa has created a food crisis that is jeopardizing the health of the region’s most vulnerable children.
Already an estimated 859,000 children under the age of five in Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, northern Nigeria and Chad are classified as needing treatment for severe malnutrition, she said.
NOUAKCHOTT, January 7, 2009—It is early December 2009 and team members at the National Center for Locust Control are clapping their hands in delight. They have been able to control at a very early stage a major locust outbreak that could have affected food security in Africa’s Sahel region and the livelihood of its vulnerable communities.
“After years of hard work, the CNLA has finally reached the level of preparedness needed to successfully control locust emergencies and prevent the situation from worsening,” said Amadou Oumar Ba, the World Bank’s task team leader on the Africa Emergency Locust Project in Mauritania.
The spike in food prices of last year (2008) underscored what experts have been telling us for many years: the world's food systems are in crisis