REDSO/WCA project assistance completion report for Mauritania trust fund (PL-480 Title II sections 202 and 206) (682-0480)

480 Title II aid to Mauritania and on a project (5/88-6/93) to establish a Trust Fund in Mauritania as a mechanism for channeling P.L. 480 local currency generations into famine relief efforts, including Food for Work activities. Like the predecessor Title II program, this Title II program and Trust Fund project stressed price reforms of cereal imports as a means of encouraging local production, but also focused on strengthening the GIRM's Food Security Commission (CSA). Political events in 1988-89, including the forced expulsion of Mauritanian residents from Senegal and of Senegalese from Mauritania, undermined some policy reforms. A 1989 evaluation found that, despite the GIRM's good faith efforts, agricultural liberalization had proceeded at a slow pace. However, the CSA, as planned, had been significantly strengthened and had reduced free food distribution and instead promoted Food for Work. Significant policy progress was in fact made in 1989 when the GIRM created a Cereals Policy Monitoring Commission and established a price monitoring system which used a project-funded radio network to link distribution branches with the Mauritania Cereals Office (OMC) headquarters in Nouakchott. The network improved accountability and gave the OMC the ability to gather data, analyze market developments, and react quickly to regional needs. Moreover, the program facilitated the GIRM's efforts to allow local grain prices to rise to those of imported grains, promoted private sector participation in cereals marketing, and improved GIRM-donor collaboration. Domestic grain production grew from 20,000 MT in 1984 to 139,000 in 1989, but it is difficult to assess if and how the program affected this growth. In addition, selected OMC agents and warehouse personnel received 1 month of training in grain marketing and storage and market surveillance. Constraints were experienced, as well. Early in the program, commodities arrived in bulk and had to be bagged by hand, a Mission oversight it took nearly 4 months to rectify. The scheme to provide American red sorghum at a price well below other cereals to make it appealing to poorer consumers failed due to the limited market for red sorghum; sales of the grain amounted to only 4,000 MTs a year, and the bulk of this was fed to livestock; unsold sorghum stock was used in the free distribution program. In 10/90, P.L. 480 Section 202 emergency stock provided 20,000 MTs of wheat to meet an one-time emergency need; of these, 12,000 MTs were distributed free of charge, while 8,000 MT were sold and funds used to pay program costs. The private sector was gradually allowed to assume most of the CSA's responsibility for distributing food commodities. The GIRM also sold four rice mills to the private sector, agreed to develop a marketing policy and food sector management information system, and issued a policy statement which provided production incentives to farmers and encouraged participation by the private sector at both the production and processing stages. The following lessons were learned. (1) Food security and self-reliance are long-term goals requiring concerted donor efforts to increase agricultural production and marketing efficiency; there is no single, immediate solution. (2) It was difficult for the GIRM to enforce policy reforms when two-thirds of the commodities brought into the country were sold at below market prices. (3) Obtaining price parity was incompatible with protecting domestic production; in the long run, import parity led to price increases. (4) OAR/Nouakchott spent considerable time accounting for sales and micro-managing the CSA's financial systems. The Mission was also forced to use call forward to force the CSA to account for all funds and bring about reforms, although the situation improved somewhat after the 1986 audit. (5) The program was overly ambitious in light of Mauritania's many constraints and could have had greater success with fewer goals focused within a fewer number of sectors.