Deteriorating food security in central, southern and southeaster Mauritania

KEY MESSAGES

• Although consumer markets are well stocked with imported food (rice, oil, sugar, tea, pasta), the continuing rise in their prices since the month of Ramadan (May) is limiting poor households’ access to them. The fall in livestock prices and the lack of seasonal rural income-generating activities are reducing poor households’ seasonal incomes.

• Faced with significant deficits in agricultural production and pasture, and difficulties in accessing water and income, poor rural households have been experiencing a longer and more difficult lean season since January (instead of March or April) than they would in an average year. In certain parts of agropastoral zones – the Senegal River Valley and the rainfed crop area – many households are in Crisis (IPC Phase 3).

• Assistance programs run by the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) (Action Against Hunger, Oxfam, Save the Children, Caritas, Agency for Cooperation and Research in Development (ACORD), the French Red Cross, Médecins du Monde, etc.) are under way in parts of certain livelihood zones. They involve free distributions of food and livestock feed as well as cash transfers and nutrition support for malnourished children and breastfeeding or pregnant women. However, they are still inadequate to meet the needs reported by humanitarian workers.