President Ghazwani promotes social programmes for the most underprivileged sectors of Mauritanian society

Mauritania is committed to social action

photo_camera Savia Mint N'Tahah

The presidency of Mohammed Ould Ghazwani in Mauritania is characterised by maintaining stability, seeking economic progress to create and improve employment, and implementing important social action programmes to benefit the most disadvantaged sectors of Mauritanian society. 

The arrival of refugees from Mali and other African countries is another of the challenges facing the Mauritanian government, which has become one of the transit countries for thousands of sub-Saharan immigrants seeking a better destination in North Africa and the much-desired destination of Europe. 

At the heart of Mauritanian society, coexistence and tolerance is a constant that defines the future of a society that is working to overcome poverty and achieve social improvements that allow for a notable improvement in welfare in the areas of education, health, transport, sanitation, water treatment, violence against women and care for children with problems such as autism. 

In this task, the president counts on the total dedication of his wife, First Lady Mariem Mohamed Fadel Dah, who is the first to work in a foundation dedicated to the specialised treatment of autistic children. A sensitivity heightened by having an autistic child. 

Mauritania

Ministry of Social Action

Women are present at all levels of Mauritanian society, in the political, economic, social and cultural spheres, and form part of a government that is committed to the preparation and training of its women ministers, who also contribute their experience combined with their youth. 

This is the case of Savia Mint N'Tahah, Minister of Social Action, who has a degree in business management, training in health care for the insured, and in women's entrepreneurship. She is an expert in personal development, social action and training for people with disabilities. Her professional profile accredits her for the position of minister following her experience as an executive at the National Health Insurance Fund (CNAM), secretary general of the Women's Association for the Promotion of Hygiene, executive at Consolidated Contractors Company Tasiast Limited, Mauritania mine expansion project, executive secretary of the Pan-African Agency for the Great Green Wall, and currently secretary general of the Mauritanian Businesswomen's Council of Mauritania.  

Savia Mint N'Tahah Mauritania

The conversation with Minister Mint N'Tahah is fluid and intense when she discusses the main topics of her Ministry.  

Priority issues

The main problems are the advancement of women and children and with regard to strategic choices, despite significant progress, Mauritanian women are still not sufficiently empowered in economic and social terms.

They continue to face difficulties in accessing factors of production, particularly credit, vocational training and production equipment and technologies, in addition to the exacerbation of violence, especially in the context of health and humanitarian crises.

To address these constraints, the government is focusing on the implementation of programmes that focus on:  

  1. Strengthening the institutional and technical capacities of administrations to institutionalise gender and combat gender-based violence.
  2. Empowering women by strengthening their capacity and promoting their access to factors of production through access to microfinance services, training and promotion of women's entrepreneurship.
  3. Promote girls' enrolment and retention in the secondary education and technical and vocational training system through programmes focusing on the construction of local secondary schools, transport services, scholarships and the promotion of successful role models for girls at all levels and types of education. 
Childhood

In the area of childhood, the phenomenon of street children continues to be a major problem with various manifestations that have a direct impact on the violation of children's rights and their exposure to violence and abuse.

In addition, the low level of pre-school provision (barely 10% of 3-6 year olds) limits the use of many opportunities that have a direct impact on the quality of basic education, national unity and cohesion, and women's empowerment.

Savia Mint N'Tahah Mauritania

In this context, a strategic plan has been developed to accelerate the provision of pre-school education, based on a set of strategic choices and options that promote public-private and public-community partnerships.

Health and nutrition

There have been notable achievements in the area of maternal and child health, especially through improved services to address the causes and determinants of maternal and child health, particularly in rural areas. Programmes focusing on immunisation, reproductive health and improved neonatal health services are being implemented with quite convincing results, especially increased rates of antenatal and postnatal consultations and medically assisted deliveries.  

The government is also making significant efforts to combat child malnutrition.

Savia Mint N'Tahah Mauritania
Collaboration with Spain

The areas of cooperation between our country and the Kingdom of Spain are numerous, including the promotion of good governance, gender, the fight against violence against women and girls, the improvement of maternal and child health, in particular reproductive health, and the protection of children's rights.

President Ghazwani's social priorities

  1. Improving the social, economic and political conditions of the disadvantaged, including victims of the legacy of slavery, particularly its contemporary forms; and
  2. Changing people's attitudes towards slavery at all levels of society.

It is important to remember that Mauritania's determination to eradicate the legacy of slavery and build the rule of law is now constant through increasingly institutionalised and multi-sectoral responses.

The President of the Republic, Mohammed Ould Cheikh Ghazwani, in his address to the Nation on the occasion of the opening of the 2021 Heritage Cities Festival in Ouadan, recalled that it is time to liberate the cultural heritage from the legacy of this abominable injustice and to break definitively with prejudices and stereotypical images that are at odds with reality and the reality of the past. It is high time to free our cultural heritage from the legacy of this abominable injustice and to break once and for all with prejudices and stereotyped images that are at odds with reality and in flagrant contradiction with the precepts of the Sharia and the rules of law, as well as weakening social cohesion and national unity and hindering the change of mentality dictated by the notion of the rule of law and the concept of citizenship.

Savia Mint N'Tahah Mauritania
Tackling the legacy of slavery

The annual budgets allocated to MASEF are increasingly responsive and better targeted to the needs and priorities of the most disadvantaged social strata.

The national workshop to evaluate the implementation of the roadmap noted that all the measures included in the roadmap to combat the legacy of slavery, for the implementation of which MASEF is responsible, have been carried out, among them:

  • The adoption of a comprehensive children's code covering, in harmony with international legal standards, all areas of child protection.
  • The generalisation of regional round tables for consultation and coordination on children's rights, which have contributed to the prevention of violations of children's rights and the establishment of better conditions for the care of victims. 
  • The adoption and implementation of a National Strategy for Gender Institutionalisation with quite convincing results in terms of taking into account the strategic interests of women and youth in development programmes and projects.
  • The drafting of a framework law on violence against women and girls, which is currently before Parliament.
  • Training of national NGOs on gender issues, especially those working in the field.

The Ministry of Social Action continues to build on these achievements and to implement important programmes that have a direct impact on the living conditions and well-being of vulnerable sectors of society and can contribute to improving their social, economic and political conditions.

Savia Mint N'Tahah Mauritania

In the area of protection and promotion of women's and girls' rights and empowerment:

  • Establishment of mechanisms to combat gender-based violence and promote women's rights, in particular: the national observatory for women's and girls' rights, regional mechanisms to combat violence against women and girls and multi-sectoral platforms to combat gender-based violence.
  • Organisation of national campaigns for the promotion of women's and girls' rights, especially on the following days: 06 February, 08 March (International Women's Day) and 25 November each year. Opinion leaders are involved in these campaigns.
  • Establishment of a training system to meet the needs of women and girls grouped in cooperatives, mainly in the agri-food sector, who are mainly from vulnerable groups, through a network of 14 branches of the Centre de Formation pour la Promotion Féminine (CFPF) and the provision of on-the-job training for 2,665 rural women and girls, with the delivery of production equipment in the framework of the SWEDD project. The CFPF has trained 669 women and girls in various fields by 2021.
  • Funding, over the period 2014-2022, of 5,200 initiatives by women and girls, especially in rural areas, for the implementation of small projects or income-generating activities. 
  • Creation of family conflict management units in all wilayas, which receive an average of more than 1,130 cases per year.

In the area of childhood

  • Development and adoption of a National Childhood Protection Strategy and its update in 2019 to cover the period 2020-2025.
  • The Centre for the Protection and Social Integration of Children (CPISE) welcomes children in difficulty and has seven branches (three in Nouakchott and four in some of the country's major towns: Nouadhibou, Rosso, Aleg and Kiffa) with a total capacity of 280 places.
  • Also the creation of a Children's Parliament, which is a forum for children's expression and a school for learning democratic values, made up of 126 children with parity between girls and boys and representation of all Moughatas at the rate of two children each.

In the area of early childhood, the following major achievements are noteworthy:

  • Development and implementation of strategic guidelines for the development of a pre-school education system with a capacity of 100,000 places by 2024. This will significantly reduce the preschool enrolment deficit, currently estimated at 10% (the construction of 50 kindergartens is underway, a fund to support preschool enrolment has been created from the 2022 State budget, ProPEP will pay the preschool enrolment costs of 3,136 children from families, 150 preschool monitors will be hired, and 103 private initiatives to create kindergartens, promoted by qualified monitors, will be financed).

In the area of nutrition for children under 5 and pregnant or breastfeeding women, the department regularly organises campaigns to promote good nutritional practices through a network of 259 community nutrition centres. 

Savia Mint N'Tahah Mauritania

In the field of social assistance and promotion of persons with disabilities: 

  • The department works continuously to improve the quality and scope of social assistance for all categories of indigent patients:
  • All indigent dialysis patients, who number 761 in 2021, benefit from social assistance covering the full cost of two dialysis sessions per week per patient and a monthly cash transfer, as well as the cost of follow-up medical check-ups.
  • Full coverage in 2021 of the costs of medical evacuations abroad of indigent patients by the National Health Council, including transport costs (patient and accompanying person) with an allowance of 40,000 MRU per patient for a total cost of 157 million MRU.
  • Total care for indigent patients in national hospitals for an annual subsidy of 20 million RMU. 
  • Support for indigent chronic patients (cancer, cardiology, diabetes, etc.), numbering 1,390.
  • The Ministry has concluded an agreement with the National Cardiology Centre for an amount of 10 million MRU for the care of indigent patients, in particular for cardiovascular surgery.
  • The social assistance system has been reinforced with the training of 200 units by the National School for Social Action (ENAS) covering the main areas of social action (social workers, trainers in sign language, Braille and autism).

Promotion and protection of the rights of persons with disabilities.

Savia Mint N'Tahah Mauritania

Referring to:

  • The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its optional protocol;
  • Ordinance 043/2006 on the promotion and protection of persons with disabilities;
  • The National Strategy for the Promotion of Persons with Disabilities 2022-2030.

MASEF has made the following achievements:

  • Adoption and dissemination of a decree on the accessibility of public buildings and means of transport.
  • Creation of a national multisectoral council for the promotion of persons with disabilities. 
  • Implementation of an integration programme for 3,800 persons with disabilities launched in 2020, which has led to the integration of more than 2,000 persons with disabilities in income-generating projects in all wilayas of the country by 2021.
  • As part of the response to COVID-19, implementation, in partnership with the Social Registry, of a cash transfer programme for 10,000 households with persons with disabilities in Nouakchott for an amount of 100 million MRU funded by UNICEF. 
  • Recruitment of 100 disabled graduates in the civil service as part of affirmative action measures.
  • Annual purchase of technical aids adapted to the needs of the disabled (wheelchairs, crutches, white canes and walkers).
  • In 2021, 604 families benefited from cash transfers to children with multiple disabilities.
  • Schooling of 637 deaf, blind, autistic and intellectually disabled children at the five sites of the Centre for Training and Social Promotion of Children with Disabilities.
  • An annual grant of MRU 8.5 million is provided to disabled people's organisations for the operation and support for the socio-economic integration of their members.

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