Mauritania, AfDB Sign Agreement To Finance Awkar Project

On 18 July, in Nouakchott, Mr. Abdessalam Mohamed Saleh, the Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development, signed with HE Ms. Malin Blomberg, the Deputy Director General of the Regional Office for Integrated Development and Service Delivery for North Africa, at the African Development Bank, a financing agreement relating to the preparation of feasibility studies for the program for the development of agricultural and pastoral stocks in the “Dhar” zone, in Hodh Chargui (Awkar project).

This financing granted by the AfDB amounts to 569,000 (sixty-nine hundred thousand units of account), or approximately 28,200,000 (twenty-eight million two hundred thousand MRU).

The “Awkar” project aims to enhance the agro-pastoral resources available in the northeastern part (Dhar) of the Wilaya of Hodh Chargui. It also seeks to provide multidimensional solutions to many problems and obstacles in the agro-pastoral sector by initiating more structural projects in livestock by developing available agro-pastoral resources.

In a speech delivered on the occasion, the Minister indicated that ”the purpose of the signature concerns three aspects, the first of which is linked to the technical pre-feasibility studies and relates to the development of infrastructures for valuing resources and improving production and productivity, while the second is related to the environmental and social dimensions. The third relates to the formulation of a plan to guide livestock investment through a long-term strategy’‘.

He added that the signing of this document represents a new step in the framework of multifaceted cooperation between our country to this institution.

For her part, the AfDB Deputy Director General said that “the Awkar project aims to enhance the agricultural and pastoral resources available in the Wilaya of Hodh Chargui, and will benefit the inhabitants living mainly on livestock”.