Proud history Provides basis for Future Growth
A rich culture developed through Mauritania’s long history now sits alongside a modern and exciting vision of the country’s future in the global economy

Mauritania’s cultural heritage supports a stable society built around principles of peace and tolerance

Peace, tolerance and growth. These are the words that define Mauritania’s vision, today and in the future; a vision that sees the country sharing its millenary culture and traditions with the rest of the world, and applying its modern outlook and democratic and economic principles to ensure its continued advancement on the global stage.

Mauritania is located in north western Africa and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, by Mali to the east, by Senegal to the southwest and by Western Sahara to the north. About the size of both Texas and California combined, Mauritania’s land is largely desert, the result of a process that started around 10,000 years ago. Before that, the country had big lakes and rivers and supported a flourishing culture: the Bafour, a proto-Berber people, who were hunters, pastoralists, and fishermen.

Mauritania’s nomadic culture began when the camel was introduced to the Berbers in Morocco around the 3rd century, allowing travelers to cover greater distances in their trade routes. West Africa’s first empire, the Empire of Ghana, which had its capital in southwest Mauritania, emerged around the 10th century. At around this time Islam also began spreading throughout the region. The Almoravids, an Islamic group who ruled Morocco and Muslim Spain in the 11th and 12th century, were founded among the Muslim Berbers of Mauritania.

Mauritania is known throughout the Arab world for its enormously rich heritage of Arabic manuscripts, many brought by pilgrims returning from Mecca, some recopied by students in the Koran schools that once flourished throughout the country, and others composed by Mauritania’s own jurists, poets and historians. In fact, the country is known as the ‘land of a million poets’. Its traditions of scholarship during the past three centuries are probably the richest in West Africa.

Mauritania’s four historical caravan towns, Chinguetti, Wadan, Walata and Tichitt, are all now UNESCO-designated World Heritage Sites justifiably proud of their libraries, which attract many scholars and tourists. However, the country’s scholarly strength has always been at the grassroots level, in the itinerant schools and rural lectures known as mahadhras, organized by charismatic teachers and scholars always on the move. The American teacher Hamza Yusef, who has advised the White House on American Muslim affairs, studied in one. His Zaytuna Institute of Islamic Studies in California is modeled at least partly on his experience in Mauritania.

Mauritania gained independence from France in 1960. With this came the declaration of an Islamic republic, the establishment of a new capital and an industrialization boost. In 1984, Maaouiya Ould Sidi Ahmed Taya came to power in a bloodless coup. A new constitution permitting multiple parties was established in 1992 and Colonel Ould Taya was re-elected, making Mauritania the first member of the Arab League to have elected a head of state by direct universal suffrage. President Taya was re-elected in 1997 and in 2003 when he received 66.7% of the vote. Mauritania is the only country in West Africa ruled by people with a nomadic heritage.

Current government concerns are focused on ensuring continued economic growth, primarily by stimulating the private sector but also by engaging in a true policy of human resources development through education and training as part of the ongoing struggle against poverty. Mauritania has concentrated on building a sound infrastructure, providing its citizens with free healthcare, as well as education through to university level. Achievements to date speak for themselves: schooling rates reached 90% by 2000, and there has been a progressive reduction of 10% in poverty rates over a ten-year period. Prospects to reduce this even further are looking good with the discovery of the country’s oil reserves, expected to go into production in 2005.