Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani instructed to suspend the AAAID 3,200 hectare project in Dar El Barka. The announcement was made on June 19, 2021 by the Minister of the Economy and the Promotion of Productive Sectors, Ousmane Kane, traveling in this commune located 350 km south of Nouakchott.
The suspension of this project attributed since 2015 to AAAID, an association of Arab investors, which is currently carrying out 25 projects in 12 countries, is a significant gesture launched by the government towards the peasants of Dar El Barka opposed to the expropriation of their lands. It is to remedy these recurring conflicts that the State is in the process of finalizing an Agricultural PPP framework allowing balanced forms of partnerships between landowners and holders of capital selected on their technical and financial capacities. The duration of the lease will be clearly mentioned in future partnership agreements. The idea is to encourage the peasants grouped around cooperatives to enter into partnerships with the State and a local or international private promoter.
This new approach presented by Minister Kane Ousmane and his counterpart in Agriculture, Sidna Ould Ahmed Ely, breaks the strategies adopted so far both in terms of development ($ 1.8 billion invested by the State since 1974 without significant results) as forms of allocation of agricultural land.
The new framework is therefore based on the identification of land ownership in an unprecedented dialogue between the State and the communities, explained Minister Ousmane Kane to the peasants of Dar El Barka. The second aspect relates to the financing which was until then parsimonious in an agricultural sector reputed to be risky with, what is more, fragmented land.
In addition to these elements, there is the lack of know-how and expertise, which is easily demonstrated by the low yield of Mauritanian agriculture compared to that of neighboring countries. “The president asked me to share all the ideas with you and report back to him to see how to support the process,” the minister said. Mauritanian Agriculture seems to have s
