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Climate disasters have crippled Mauritania in recent years, but improving access to healthcare and electricity, could help mitigate such risks, the IMF suggests. In a report - How Mauritania Can Reduce the Impact of Climate Disasters on its Economy -the IMF points out that climate-related natural disasters are becoming more frequent and severe in Mauritania, exacerbating long-standing challenges like land and infrastructure degradation, water stress and food insecurity. In 2021, on the back of a severe drought, at least 20% of the population faced acute food insecurity, the highest in the countrys history Women and lower-income households were worst affected as theyre disproportionally reliant on natural resources. The IMF says the cost to Mauritanias growth is significant. Our [IMF] research shows that on average Mauritanias medium-term annual per capita growth could fall by around 0.8 to 1 percentage points if a drought intensifies by 10 percentage points. The rate of intense droughts is measured over five-year windows, based on the impact on more than 0.01% of the population. If a flood intensifies by the same amount, the hit to medium-term growth would be around one-fifth to one-fourth of the drought-related effect on per capita growth. The IMF suggests, however, that these losses could be mitigated with improvements to healthcare and electricity, according to recent research. Expanding access to electricity for example can halve the economic losses caused by droughts. Electricity helps mitigate water shortages by powering irrigation systems and deep tube-well pumps. But less than half (47%) of Mauritanias population has access to electricity and only about 5% in rural areas (according to 2020 data). |
