Programme description

Title: Management of Natural Resources
Commissioned by: Bundesministerium für Wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ)
Country: Mauritania
Lead executing agency: Ministry of Economic Affairs and Development (MAED)
Overall term: 2005 to 2010

Context

In arid Mauritania, the population’s livelihood is being seriously threatened by overexploitation of grassland steppe and brushwood areas. Women, who keep domestic livestock and sell wood and other products, are particularly hard hit.
In the wetland national park Banc d’Arguin and in other wetlands in the arid eastern part of the country – both resting sites for migrating birds from Europe – a decline in biodiversity has been observed. At the same time, access to water for nomadic herding, which predominates, is a source of increasing potential for conflict.

The main reason for the worsening situation is social change. Population growth, the settling of the formerly nomadic population, and the parallel application of Islamic-based traditional law and “modern” law have undermined traditional regulation systems governing the management of natural resources.

The further development of resource management systems is currently being blocked by unfavourable legal and institutional framework conditions and by the absence of an effective promotion and incentive system on the local level.

Objective

Natural resources are being sustainably managed in Mauritania’s more significant ecosystems, with the population organised into stakeholder groups.

The programme also aims for policy advising on the national level, enabling the population to make better use of their possibilities in regard to the local regulation of resource use, and improving the competencies of advisory organisations.

Approach

The programme is based on the national environmental action plan PANE. Its implementation proceeds through individual, sometimes autonomous programme components, in some cases in cooperation with multilateral and bilateral donors in Mauritania (the World Bank, UNDP, France, Spain).
The programme is working closely with German Financial Cooperation (KfW development bank).
All programme activities pursue the initiation and support of processes of change among a wide diversity of actors.

The programme reaches the population via private service-providers (non-governmental organisations, local engineering offices), specialised public services and stockbreeder organisations. These intermediaries are being briefed, advised and trained by national and international experts, whose work is financed from programme funds.

The programme can build upon that of previous projects in Mauritania. Agreements on the local level among all resource users have proved to be a particularly effective instrument for the greater sustainability of resource management. The programme supports negotiation processes and the legal validation of such agreements.

The systematic preparation of experience in various locations (coastal, river valley, forest-pasture zones) and with various themes permits more comprehensive policy advising on the national level. Thus practical experience can contribute to ongoing enhancement of the environmental action plan, its integration into poverty reduction strategy, and the establishment of a ministry of the environment.

Results achieved so far

The programme has already received inquiries from third parties regarding its approach to local resource use agreements.

Further information

• Internet page of the programme component "Gestion Décentralisée des Ressources Naturelles au Guidimagha et dans le Hodh-el-Gharbi"
  www.eco-consult.com/glc/