Mauritania’s population is predominantly young with more than 60 percent of the total population being under the age of 25 (61.3 percent in 2020). This part of the population faces poor labour market conditions due to a variety of reasons such as a lack in employment opportunities, limited access to credits, and insufficient skills development and education opportunities.[1] Consequently, a large share of young Mauritanians fail to successfully transition into employment, remaining unemployed or largely inactive in the labour market.
Economic inclusion of young people as a driver of development
The World Bank’s Youth Employability Project in Mauritania aims to promote the employability of vulnerable youth in Mauritania. In the margins of this project, the World Bank mobilised a total of 40 million USD to launch an economic inclusion programme for young Mauritanians and to help strengthen the government’s institutional capacities to implement the programme. A contingency emergency response component and a project management, monitoring, and evaluation component accompany the project activities.
This project is part of the G5 Sahel’s Emergency Development Programme (PDU) – an initiative called to life by the governments of the G5 Sahel countries and financially supported by the members of the Sahel Alliance.
Facilitate employment readiness and boost productivity
The economic inclusion programme will aim to improve the employability of young Mauritanians through a multidimensional and integrated package of services, which will support vulnerable youth along their path to employment. These services will be designed to facilitate employment readiness and boost productivity by alleviating the most pressing constraints faced in accessing gainful employment. Based on lessons learned from other high impact integrated youth employment programmes, the service package will include: (i) job counselling and mentoring sessions; (ii) life skills training; (iii) short-term technical skills training and internships; (iv) business skills training; and (v) cash grants for income-generating activities.
For more information, please download the project here: Youth employment project
[1] World Bank (2017), Islamic Republic of Mauritania: turning challenges into opportunities for ending poverty and promoting share prosperity. Systematic Country Diagnostic, (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2017).
Mauritania
