Water Supply and Sanitation in Mauritania : Turning Finance into Services for 2015 and Beyond

The situation within the water supply
and sanitation (WSS) sector in Mauritania is somewhat
contradictory: in spite of the weakness of the institutions
in charge of the sector and the lack of financing for
sanitation and, more recently, for the rural water supply
(RWS) subsector, significant improvements have been made in
the access rates since 1990. The institutional reform of the
RWS subsector, notably marked by the implementation of a
delegated management system for water supply networks, has
led to improvements in both service quality and access, at a
pace which remains only slightly below that required to meet
the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets. In rural
areas, the institutional framework remains poor and
unstable. The management of water supply networks still
needs to be improved; the sanitation subsector lacks both a
clear intervention strategy and resources. These are the
priority areas that need to be worked on to stimulate the
capacity to mobilize and absorb financing, both domestic and
donor. This second AMCOW Country Status Overview (CSO2) has
been produced in collaboration with the Government of
Mauritania and other stakeholders.