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Authors:

Léa Vicky Magne Domgho, Souleymane Guèye et Gert-Jan Stads

Year:

2018

Publisher

International Food Policy Research Institute.

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Key trends

  • Crop and livestock research play a relatively minor role in Mauritania given its arid climate. IMROP, which focuses on fisheries research, accounts for the bulk of the country’s agricultural research spending.
  • Agricultural research spending and staff numbers fluctuated during 2000–2012, due to the expiration and renewal of various EU fisheries treaties funding IMROP’s research. Since 2012, however, there has been a steady rise in fisheries, crop, and livestock research investment.
  • The recent establishment of ONARDEL, which replaced CNERV as the country’s main livestock research institute, prompted a large influx of young livestock researchers.

Current challenges

  • As of 2016, Mauritania invested just 0.49 percent of its AgGDP in agricultural research, which is well below the level required to sustain long-term agricultural productivity growth.
  • Mauritania lacks qualified agricultural researchers in numerous areas. As of 2014, CNRADA, CNERV, and CNLA were without PhD-qualified plant breeders, animal breeders, soil scientists, and socioeconomists despite the critical importance of these areas.
  • These capacity constraints are an important reason behind the extremely low number of new crop varieties released in the country, compared with other West African countries.

Policy options

  • Strong political will and matching funding are needed to revitalize agricultural research in Mauritania. This involves establishing a more effective national S&T policy strategy, better coordination of agricultural research, and further strengthening of the crop and livestock research institutes.
  • Creative mechanisms should also be explored to stimulate private-sector research funding beyond the dairy industry. Cultivating private funding involves providing a more enabling policy environment in terms of tax incentives, protection of intellectual property rights, and regulatory reforms to encourage the spill-in of international technologies.