Mauritania: $10 Million Aid Grant Comes Too Late

The World Bank has approved a US$10 million grant ^[1] to help the Government of Mauritania provide emergency food and agricultural supplies to rural communities in the face of the country's ongoing drought. The funds are intended to provide fertilizers to rice farmers; veterinary products and livestock vaccines to herders; cereal grains to communities; and alleviate current food and animal feed shortages. Some of this help may be too late: rice farmers needed fertilizer months ago, and promised supplies failed to be delivered on time. As the Mauritania Akhbar blog reports, the farmers announced in May they were suing the government ^[2] [ar] for US$40,000.