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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Mauritania
Index
Like many developing countries, Mauritania was unable to
compile accurate demographic statistics during its first decades
of independence. The official census of December 1976 enumerated
over 1.4 million people, including a nomadic population of about
513,000. Based on these figures, the 1987 population was
estimated at 1.8 million, of which about 50.25 percent were
females and 49.75 percent were males. The government estimated
annual population growth at 1.6 percent during the 1970s, but
United Nations (UN) estimates placed growth at 2.9 percent
between 1975 and 1985. The 2.9 percent rate projected
Mauritania's population size in the year 2000 to be nearly 2.5
million people. This rate of growth, although lower than that of
many other African countries, was expected to rise during the
1990s.
The crude birth rate for the years 1980 through 1985 was 50.1
per 1,000 population according to UN estimates, an increase over
the 45.1 per 1,000 ratio observed in 1965. The crude death rate
declined from 28 per 1,000 population in 1965 to 20.9 per 1,000
population in 1980. Infant mortality was estimated at 137 deaths
per 1,000 births. Life expectancy was 42.4 years for men and 45.6
years for women. Infant mortality was higher and life expectancy
lower than the average for Third World countries in the mid1980s . Like many developing countries, Mauritania's population
was young: in 1985 an estimated 72 percent was under thirty years
of age, and 46.4 percent was under fifteen years of age.
Based on UN estimates, average population density in 1987 was
1.8 people per square kilometer--by far the lowest level in West
Africa. The population also was unevenly distributed. The 1976
census showed that 85 percent of all Mauritanians lived south of
18° north latitude--a line running roughly east from
Nouakchott.
Migration toward the south continued throughout the 1980s.
Population density varied from 0.1 per square kilometer in the
Saharan Zone to more than 35 per square kilometer in densely
settled parts of the Senegal River Valley.
Mauritania's population underwent dramatic changes as a
consequence of drought and migration during the 1960s and 1970s.
In the 1960s, pastoral nomads (mostly Maures) and sedentary
agriculturists (mostly blacks) constituted more than 90 percent
of the population. At that time, urbanization was at a very low
level. By the mid-1980s, however, observers estimated that less
than 25 percent of the population was still nomadic or
seminomadic, whereas the urban population was about 30 percent
and the remainder, sedentary farmers or small town dwellers. Many
other factors also contributed to this shift in settlement
patterns and livelihood, including long-term efforts by colonial
and independent governments to settle the nomads and new
employment opportunities associated with mining and export
industries.
These trends, accelerated in the 1980s, fostered rates of
urbanization that the
World Bank (see Glossary)
placed among the
highest in Africa. In 1984 observers estimated that at least 30
percent of the population (more than 500,000 people) were urban
dwellers, not counting temporary residents displaced by drought.
In mid-1985 the World Bank raised this estimate to 40 percent,
following a further two-year period of extreme drought. Counting
both resident and temporary urban dwellers, some sources in the
late 1980s placed Mauritania's urban population at or above 80
percent.
In the mid-1980s, Nouakchott was home to an estimated 400,000
to 500,000 inhabitants. Nouadhibou's population numbered 50,000
to 70,000; Zouîrât's, about 50,000. Other cities, such as Atar,
Kaédi, Rosso, and Néma, had doubled or tripled in size between
1970 and 1985.
More than any other locale, Nouakchott illustrated the
problems brought about by rapid and uncontrolled urbanization.
Originally a small administrative center, it had about 30,000
inhabitants in 1959 and more than 40,000 by 1970. During the
1970s, the city grew at a rate of 15 to 20 percent a year; rapid
expansion persisted into the mid-1980s. Only about one-tenth of
the city's population had access to adequate housing and
services. Water and housing shortages were especially severe.
Many of the recent arrivals lived in the kébés
(shantytowns) that sprang up around the capital. In 1983 a French
researcher calculated that 40 percent or more of Nouakchott's
population lived in kébés; by 1987 that percentage had
increased.
The Mauritanian government sought international assistance to
cope with the population problem. It also attempted to reverse
the influx of people to the cities by offering land, seeds, and
transport to families willing to return to the countryside and
resume farming. A relocation incentive program was launched in
1985, but because of persistent drought its prospects were
difficult to gauge.
Despite massive unemployment, a substantial number of
foreigners--as much as 15 percent of the modern sector work
force--were needed to meet the demand for skilled labor. At the
same time, at least 600,000 Mauritanians sought work outside
their homeland, mainly in West Africa, the Middle East, and
Western Europe. Mauritanian traders, for example, were involved
in petty commerce in Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire and sometimes
traded as far away as Central Africa. Maures sometimes sought
employment in the Arab petroleum-producing states, whereas black
Mauritanians most often sought work in France. Each year from
January to July, when there was little need for cultivators and
harvesters in Mauritania, large numbers of workers (mostly
blacks) sought jobs in Senegal and Mali.
Data as of June 1988
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