Protecting livelihoods, reducing undernutrition, and building resilience through safety nets, asset creation and skills development

This operation has been modified as per budget revision 4 (see below)

Food insecurity in Mauritania stems from poverty, environmental degradation, and cyclical shocks. Recent assessments show that over 14 percent of the population is consistently food insecure. Thousands more become food insecure as the annual lean season approaches, and food insecurity in urban Nouakchott has risen sharply in recent years. 

Low food consumption reflects limited dietary diversity and nutritional status impacted by poor caring practices and inadequate access to water, sanitation and health services. Global acute malnutrition among children age 6–59 months doubles between the harvest and lean season, exceeding the World Health Organization (WHO) serious threshold.

This operation presents a strategic shift for WFP in Mauritania, leveraging existing capacities of WFP and partners and maximizing impact through geographic and programmatic integration of activities at three levels: within WFP; with partners through community-based planning and monitoring; and with broader Government systems. Safety nets will be linked with community asset creation and skills development to build household capacity to withstand shocks. The nutrition strategy targets seasonal shocks with cross-cutting capacity building at central, institutional and community levels while ensuring active beneficiary participation.

The operation supports 2014–2017 WFP Strategic Objectives 1 “Save lives and protect livelihoods in emergencies; 3 “Reduce risk and enable people, communities and countries to meet their own food and nutrition needs”; and 4 “Reduce undernutrition and break the intergenerational cycle of hunger”, and contributes to Millennium Development Goals 1, 3, 4, 5 and 7. It is aligned with Government strategies for poverty reduction, nutrition and malnutrition, and takes into account food deficits projected in 2014.

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Budget revision 04 proposes an extension of the PRRO interventions until December 2017 with the objectives and strategic orientations unchanged. It will allow WFP to continue responding to the food and nutrition insecurity in Mauritania in 2017, while facilitating the conduction of a national zero hunger strategic review, preparing a new country strategic plan (CSP) 2018-2022, and addressing the results of the Evaluation of WFP Mauritania Country Portfolio (2011-2015).