MONGABAY.COM
Mongabay.com seeks to raise interest in and appreciation of wild lands and wildlife, while examining the impact of emerging trends in climate, technology, economics, and finance on conservation and development (more)
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
|
|
Mauritania
Index
Imraguen fisherman and his catch
Figure 5. Gross Domestic Product (GPD) by Sector, Fiscal Year (FY)
1984
Source: Based on information from David Hillings et al.,
Africa South of the Sahara, 16th ed., London, 1987, 680.
AT INDEPENDENCE IN 1960, Mauritania embarked on an ambitious but
ill-conceived development plan to construct large-scale
industrial projects in the mining, energy, and manufacturing
sectors. The failure of many of these projects left the nation
saddled with one of the largest foreign debt burdens in the world
in proportion to the size of its economy. In the late 1980s,
Mauritania's economy continued to rely heavily on the earnings
derived from the export of iron ore and fish. The economy also
remained seriously hampered by a structural inability to feed the
country's population. Even in nondrought years, large amounts of
food aid were needed to supplement domestic production and
commercial food imports.
Until the mid-1980s, iron ore mining was the motor of
economic development in Mauritania. Exploitation of rich, highgrade iron ore deposits began in 1963. In the 1960s, mining
directly provided almost one-third of the gross domestic product
(GDP--see Glossary)
and contributed more than 80 percent of the
country's export earnings. Mauritania also began mining copper
deposits in 1973; the mine closed in 1975, however, because of
falling world copper prices. The worldwide recession that caused
a fall in demand for copper also affected iron exports. Iron
mining stagnated during the later 1970s. By the mid-1980s, the
mining sector had lost its predominance in the economy,
accounting for between 10 and 11 percent of GDP in fiscal year
(FY--see Glossary)
1984, and by 1985 export earnings from mining
had fallen to around 40 percent
(see
fig. 5).
The waters off the coast of Mauritania are among the richest
fishing grounds in the world. Before 1979, however, the
government exercised little control over foreign fishing
operations, and Mauritanians took little part in fishing. Fishing
and fish processing accounted for less than 5 percent of GDP in
1975, and virtually the only revenues obtained were in the form
of royalties on fishing licenses paid by foreign fishing
companies to the government. In 1979 Mauritania established its
New Fisheries Policy and a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic
zone (EEZ). The industry underwent rapid growth under the new
policy, which required foreign operators to form joint ventures
with Mauritanian companies and resulted in the development of a
national fishing fleet.
Although in 1984 fishing contributed less than 10 percent to
GDP at current market prices, the volume of reported fish exports
rose rapidly. In 1983 fishing became the number one foreign
exchange earner with some 54 percent of export revenues. Fishing,
together with mining, employed about 9 percent of the
economically active population.
Through the 1970s, agriculture, including herding, continued
to deteriorate. Serious droughts combined with economic neglect
to cause a severe decline in farm production. Both herding and
agriculture were hard hit by the droughts: their combined
contributions to GDP dropped from about 40 percent in the 1960s
to about 25 percent in 1986.
In the early 1960s, Mauritania produced about half of its
grain needs. After dropping to an all-time low of about 3 to 5
percent of its grain needs during the drought years of 1983-85,
production rebounded somewhat to about one-third of need in 1986.
Although the vast majority of the people remained attached to the
traditional agro-pastoral life of the countryside, this life was
becoming extremely difficult. Desertification advanced in some
areas at a rate of six kilometers per year. Increasingly,
refugees from the countryside began to migrate to urban centers
such as Nouakchott. With the exception of a few scattered oases,
farming was limited to the narrow band along the Senegal River.
As recently as the mid-1970s, only 20 percent of Mauritania's
total population were sedentary farmers. Between 1975 and 1980,
their contribution to GDP averaged 3 to 5 percent. During the
same period, the pastoral herding sector of the economy
constituted about 20 percent of GDP and engaged 60 to 70 percent
of the total population. Of the states in West Africa, Mauritania
had the highest ratio of cattle to people, a ratio of three to
one. The livestock-to-crop ratio of GDP also was the highest for
West Africa, as animal husbandry contributed four times as much
to GDP as did farming.
The cumulative effects of drought and weak demand for
Mauritania's iron exports, along with the heavy expenses of the
war in the
Western Sahara
(see Glossary) during the mid-1970s,
curtailed the rapid growth of the 1960s that had been marked by
an average rise in GDP of 8 percent a year. During the late 1970s
and the 1980s, the economy stagnated, and financial instability
supplanted an earlier ability to meet foreign debt obligations.
From 1974 to 1984, GDP growth averaged 2.3 percent, barely
keeping pace with population growth. In 1986 GDP per capita
income was estimated at US$410, no higher in real terms than a
decade earlier, placing Mauritania at the lower end of low- to
middle-income developing countries. Real per capita income for
the vast majority of the population outside the small modern
sector was much lower, estimated in the range of US$100 to US$150
per year.
Data as of June 1988
|
|