Mauritanian Prime Minister, Yahya Ould Hademine, has confirmed that his country would honor its financial contribution to the African Capacity Building Foundation’s (ACBF) strategic medium term plans.
In a meeting held on 15 June 2015, on the margins of the 25th AU Summit held in Johannesburg (South Africa), his Excellency Ould Hademine also told ACBF’s Executive Secretary, Prof. Emmanuel Nnadozie that his country would support the Foundation’s resource mobilization efforts to diversify its sources of funding by facilitating meetings with potential new funders.
The Mauritanian Premier thanked the Foundation for its overall support to Mauritania and in particular for its continued support to Centre Mauritanien d’Analyse des Politiques (CMAP) over the past years and that CMAP had become an important organization, which is playing a critical role in Mauritania.
For instance, CMAP assisted the Government of Mauritania in exploring employment opportunities in the agro-industry sector. It released a comprehensive study on analysis of Agro-industry that showed the detailed value-chain of that sector as well as the possibilities for Mauritanian youngsters to establish innovative agro-enterprises in the country. In collaboration with the Institut Supérieur d’Enseignement Technique (ISET), CMAP was able to provide a youth employment coaching session focusing on the agricultural sector for undergraduate students. Four out of 30 participants were able to establish new enterprises dealing with production and distribution of vegetables. Thanks to the success of CMAP youth employment coaching session, the Institut Universitaire Professionnel (IUP) signed an agreement with the project to set up a Master’s degree program on youth employment and entrepreneurship. The preparation of the curriculum is at an advanced stage and the program is planned to start in fall 2015.
However, the Premier expressed worries at the impact that the recent restructuring of ACBF’s portfolio might have on service delivery by the Centre since key experts might have to leave as a result of the subsequent reduction of ACBF’s funding, despite support provided by the Government. He added that the situation also affected the capacity of the Centre to mobilize other resources. The Prime Minister requested ACBF to consider providing additional support to CMAP.
The Executive Secretary expressed his satisfaction for the response and the commitment made by the Prime Minister to assist the Foundation in its resources mobilization drive. He also assured that ACBF will consider the request on additional support to CMAP.
