São Paulo – Mauritania, an Arab country in North Africa, posted an average annual growth rate 4% from 2006 to 2011, according to a report from the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
The news were published by the African news agency Panapress . According to the report, Mauritania had its best-ever growth rate in 2006, 11%, due mainly to the beginning of oil drilling in the Arab nation. The lowest rates were recorded between 2007 and 2009.
The report ascribes the low growth during this period to low oil output, starting in 2007, and poor performance of the civil construction and public works sectors, in 2008 and 2009, due to the interruption of foreign financing due to political problems.
In 2008, president-elect Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi was overthrown by a military junta. The general who ran the operation at the time, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, was later elected as president in mid-2009. He remains at the helm until this day.
In 2009, the country posted a negative growth rate, with a 1.2% recession, caused mainly by a decline in agricultural output from lack of rains, shortcomings in irrigation systems, and the dearth of agricultural inventories and crop financing.
The report was prepared by the ICPD to list the progress made by different countries in developing their populations, and the main challenges to the implementation of the 1994 Cairo Conference plan. The Cairo Conference set forth targets that are part of the Millennium Development Goals, and concern the development of countries’ populations.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum