UNDP Representative Visits HAPA
On 21 January, the head of the High Authority for Press and Audiovisuals (HAPA), Mr. El-Hussein Ould Meddou, received at the authority’s headquarters in Nouakchott, Mr. Anthony Ngororano, Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Mauritania.
During the meeting, the head of HAPA gave a presentation on the functions of this authority and the regulating and developmental activities it undertakes in the field of expanding and protecting freedoms and training media professionals.
He reviewed the reforms implemented after the government adopted the report of the Media Sector Reform Committee.
He referred to the interrelationship between the dimensions of development, democracy, and freedom, reviewing the points of intersection between HAPA and UNDP, and topics that represent future workshops to enhance cooperation between them in terms of consolidating freedoms, strengthening democratic governance, and advocating sustainable development goals and advocating for women and youth issues Training for the media.
On his part, the resident representative of UNDP expressed his appreciation for the experience of HAPA as a lever to strengthen the values of democracy, freedom, discipline, and pluralism.
He also expressed the readiness of the UNDP to keep pace with the supreme authority in strengthening the values of freedom of expression, training media professionals, maximizing the use of new technologies, and supporting the promotion of women and youth, which constitute basic axes of sustainable development goals and pivotal items of national development strategies and programs.
The representative of the UNDP, praised the Mauritanian leadership in basic issues of governance, the most important of which is freedom of expression and the involvement of societal actors, particularly scholars, in rooting the values of social peace and security, which is leadership that can form models in the semi-region in comparison to the security problems in the Sahel.
He referred as well to the maturity of the Mauritanian political experience and the steady positive accumulation in the democratic path, with its values and principles.
At the end of the meeting, the representative of the UNDP visited the monitoring center of the authority and the investigations unit that is currently supervising the achievement of pluralism on issues of women, youth, and people with needs, where he listened to detailed explanations from those in charge of the two centers.