History of Peace Corps in
the Islamic Republic of Mauritania

The Peace Corps began working in Mauritania in 1967, shortly after having signed an official agreement with the Mauritanian government. Since that time more than 900 Peace Corps Volunteers have completed two years of service, working in education, health/water sanitation, agriculture, and small business development. Early interventions were aimed building roads, bridges, and dams, improving health, and teaching English, math, and physics. The foundations for the current program were laid in the 1980s, when Volunteers began to work in agriculture and environmental preservation, cooperatives, and health and guinea worm eradication. In the 1990s, the agriculture and environmental preservation sectors merged to form what is now the Agroforestry program, while the cooperatives and health/guinea worm programs were expanded to become Small Business Development and Community Health/Water Sanitation/Disease Control, respectively. In the past two years, Peace Corps/Mauritania has reopened its Education program and reinstated Environmental Education as an autonomous sector. There are currently more than 100 Volunteers working in the country.

History and Future of Peace Corps Programming in Mauritania

Peace Corps/Mauritania works in five primary areas: health and water sanitation, education (teaching English), agroforestry, environmental education, and small business development. Each of these sectors was chosen based on needs expressed by both the Mauritanian government and local communities.

Volunteers in health and water sanitation are working to improve the health of rural populations by giving these communities the skills necessary to reduce the incidence of water-borne and hygiene-related diseases. Specific projects include constructing and maintaining public water and waste elimination systems, promoting community health education, and training village-based health agents.

Education volunteers teach English to young Mauritanian students in middle and high schools as their primary assignment. They also work to improve the quality of education in Mauritania by working with host country national teachers to do peer coaching, design teaching materials, and make lesson plans. Volunteers are also involved in community development through outreach activities, cross-sectoral collaboration, and individual volunteer initiatives.

Volunteers in the Agroforestry program are part of an integrated development effort that is implementing improved agriculture and forestry practices throughout rural Mauritania. More specifically, Peace Corps Volunteers are attempting to improve the capacity of local farmers in selected oases and villages to produce nutritious food, both for consumption and income generation, while also protecting garden sites, villages, and oases against sand encroachment and natural degradation. A major emphasis of the Volunteers’ work includes transferring technical expertise to Mauritanian farmers and villagers.

The newest Peace Corps/Mauritania program is Environmental Education. Volunteers in this sector assist local communities and their schools in raising environmental awareness and encouraging school and community members to act in accordance with the prinicples of environmental preservation, in the hopes that these communities will improve their natural resource management practices.

In small business development, Volunteers are transferring basic business skills to small-scale entrepreneurs and cooperatives in Mauritania’s informal economic sector in an effort to strengthen their planning, financial management, marketing, and profitability. These skills will increase entrepreneurs' and cooperatives’ access to credit, allowing them to create new businesses or expand existing ones.

-- Disclaimer: The content of this web site is a project of the volunteers in Mauritania and does not reflect any official position of Peace Corps or the U.S. government. --