Mauritania Appeal
Humanitarian Action for Children
UNICEF’s Humanitarian Action for Children appeal helps support the agency’s work as it
provides conflict- and disaster-affected children with access to water, sanitation, nutrition,
education, health and protection services. Return to main appeal page.
Mauritania snapshot
Appeal highlights
- In Mauritania, one in four children lives in absolute poverty, 80 per cent of children experience at least one form of violence, and 3 in 10 children are exposed to drought, floods or suffer from severe acute malnutrition. The COVID-19 pandemic and polio outbreaks have exacerbated the situation and hampered the development of a protective environment for children.
- UNICEF is committed to guaranteeing children's well-being through an evidence-based, integrated and multi-sectoral humanitarian-development nexus approach, while increasing the accountability and ownership of national stakeholders. The inclusion of gender equality and disability and the scaling-up of community-based mechanisms and innovations are prioritized in order to reach more children.
- In 2022, US$18.9 million is required to meet the humanitarian needs of children in Mauritania, 40 per cent of which is needed for the COVID-19 response. This includes US$6.4 million to provide an integrated response to health and malnutrition.
Key planned results for 2022
27,400 women and children accessing gender-based violence mitigation / prevention / response
119,553 people with access to safe and accessible channel to report sexual exploitation/abuse
70,000 household reached with cash transfers through government system with UNICEF support
391,283 people reached through messaging on prevention and access to services
Funding requirements for 2022
Country needs and strategy
Humanitarian needs
Despite sustained economic growth, Mauritania's wealth is distributed inequitably, with social sectors and the most vulnerable people, especially children, having the least access to it. Mauritania is facing the dire consequences of climate change, with severe droughts and seasonal flooding affecting the availability of safe drinking water and the use of adequate sanitation practices, and endangering peaceful coexistence and social cohesion among communities. This is especially true in the Hodh ech Chargui (HeC) region, which continues to face the consequences of armed conflict in Mali, ongoing since 2012. The country hosts the largest Malian refugee population in the Sahel region, with more than 67,466 Malian refugees living in and around the M’Berra camp.
Approximately 27 per cent of children (472,000) live in absolute poverty and 6 per cent (106,000) live in a situation of severe or extreme deprivation that has an impact on their physical, mental and emotional development. Precarious living conditions, combined with socioeconomic disparities, result in limited access to basic social services such as education, with 163,228 children out of school. Distance learning programmes included in the Ministry of Education’s COVID-19 response plan remain irregular throughout the country.
The COVID-19 pandemic and other disease outbreaks, such as measles, polio and Rift Valley Fever severely threaten the population’s resilience and development. This epidemiological situation is expected to continue in 2022 (with only 556,073 people having been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, representing 21 per cent of the national target).
The nutritional context in Mauritania has also deteriorated since the start of the pandemic. In 2021, a total of 1,385,278 people faced food insecurity. Among them, 11.3 per cent suffered from severe forms of food insecurity. Nationally, the global acute malnutrition rate is 11 per cent and the severe acute malnutrition (SAM) rate is 1.9 per cent. Twenty-one out of 55 districts are experiencing a nutrition emergency. The Ministry of Health estimates that 136,254 acutely malnourished children, including 32,740 cases of SAM, will require urgent care in 2022.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, different forms of violence, including gender-based violence, have been exacerbated. An estimated 71 per cent (350,262) of children aged 1 to 4 years are victims of violence, while 84 per cent (422,510) of children aged 5 to 14 years are subjected to at least one form of psychological or physical punishment by members of their household. The registration of children under 5 years of age in the civil registry remains alarmingly low (46.2 per cent).
UNICEF’s strategy
UNICEF is committed to guaranteeing a protective environment for disadvantaged children, youth and women facing humanitarian crises in Mauritania. The COVID-19 pandemic, which has aggravated pre-existing deprivations and inequalities, has forced UNICEF to readapt its humanitarian strategy and to integrate COVID-19 response actions into all of its programmes. In 2022, UNICEF will address the most urgent needs of 715,000 people in Mauritania, including 435,000 disadvantaged children.
UNICEF’s humanitarian action will be guided by an evidence-based, integrated and multi-sectoral approach. It will ensure social cohesion and the continuity of basic social services, while increasing national stakeholders’ accountability and ownership. This participatory approach will strengthen the link between humanitarian interventions, development programmes, and peace and resilience-building efforts, especially in and around the M’Berra refugee camp. Cash transfer programmes will support 140,000 children from 70,000 vulnerable families.
Capacity-building and innovation will continue to shape UNICEF’s action to ensure equitable access to quality education for refugees and host community children in protective environments. Education personnel will improve their capacities in peacebuilding, conflict-sensitive education,disaster risk reduction, and the prevention of gender-based violence. The ongoing development of distance learning programmes and digital learning platforms will ensure pedagogical continuity in the COVID-19 context.
Recognizing the roles that families and communities play in children’s well-being, UNICEF will work to implement multi-sectoral community-based approaches for accelerating access to basic social services. To build communities’ resilience to shocks, nutrition, WASH and health services will be strengthened. This will be done through prevention, early detection and treatment of malnutrition, access to safe drinking water using solar pumps, management of newborn care and childhood illnesses. Access to quality primary health care and immunization will also be supported and facilitated by strengthening the preparedness of local health systems.
UNICEF will expand community engagement and risk communication through innovations, such as chatbots and voice recordings, to equip communities with the skills to develop protective practices and to engage duty-bearers more effectively. Feedback mechanisms, including social listening from media platforms, U-Report and call centers will be improved to address community concerns, guide decision-making and to guarantee the effective inclusion of gender, disability and youth priorities in all programmes.
Communal child protection systems and mechanisms will be strengthened to improve the identification, referral and treatment of children in need of protection. The newly developed case management protocol will be contextualized to better respond to humanitarian needs and to guarantee the adequate care of survivors of all forms of violence, including sexual and gender- based violence, as well as that of children on the move and children with disabilities.
Programme targets
Find out more about UNICEF's work
Highlights
Humanitarian Action is at the core of UNICEF’s mandate to realize the rights of every child. This edition of Humanitarian Action for Children – UNICEF’s annual humanitarian fundraising appeal – describes the ongoing crises affecting children in Mauritania; the strategies that we are using to respond to these situations; and the donor support that is essential in this response.
