Countries | Hunger and Nutrition Commitment Index Africa

Key data for Mauritania

NCI28th HRCI25th HANCI28th

HANCI-Africa compares 45 African countries for their performance on 22 indicators of political commitment to reduce hunger and undernutrition. All the countries compared in the index have high rates of hunger and undernutrition. The comparative approach of the index means that country scores are calculated in relation to the political commitment of the other countries in the index.

1South Africa
2Burkina Faso
3Malawi
4Madagascar
4Rwanda
6Kenya
7Cape Verde

7Tanzania
9Tunisia
10Mali
11Botswana
12Benin
13Niger
13Zimbabwe

15Côte d’Ivoire
16Burundi
17Sierra Leone
18Ghana
19Zambia
20Gabon
20The Gambia

22Uganda
23Senegal
24Nigeria
25Egypt
26Ethiopia
27Congo, DR
28Mauritania

29Algeria
30Morocco
31Namibia
32Mozambique
33São Tomé and Príncipe
34Liberia
35Guinea

36Cameroon
37Lesotho
38Guinea‑Bissau
39Angola
39Chad
41Sudan
42Comoros

43Eswatini
44Togo
45Congo

Existing rates of: Stunting: 22.8% Wasting: 11.5% Proportion of population underweight: 11.5% Source: Government of Mauritania (SMART,2018)

Strong Performance

Spending on agriculture (10% of public spending in 2019) meets government commitments set out in the African Union’s Maputo Declaration (10% of public spending).
The Government encourages varied agricultural research and extension services, and local farmer organisations are involved in setting policy priorities. The extension system is effective and properly reaches out to poor farmers. Government policies, strategies and mechanisms seek to ensure gender equity in access to extension services. This has been the case for an extended period.
The National Nutrition Policy/Strategy identifies time bound nutrition targets and a multisectoral and multistakeholder policy coordination mechanism has been set up.
Policymakers in Mauritania benefit from regular nutrition surveys that are statistically representative at national level. The last survey was published in 2019-2020.
The Government of Mauritania promotes complementary feeding practices.

Areas for improvement

Mauritania’s spending in its health sector (6.1% of public spending in 2017) does not fully meet (15%) commitments set out in the Abuja Declaration.
In Mauritania, the law does not give women economic rights equal to men. Men and women have equal legal access to agricultural land, but this is not effectively enforced and discriminatory practices against women continue, increasing their vulnerability to hunger and undernutrition.
The Government of Mauritania has not enshrined the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes into domestic law.
Weak access to improved sanitation facilities (48.4% in 2017) obstructs better hunger and nutrition outcomes.
In Mauritania, constitutional protection of the right to food and the right to social security is weak.
Social safety nets in Mauritania are basic and only cover few risks for a limited number of beneficiaries.
Civil registration rates are weak (65.6% in 2015) and potentially hold back children’s access to critical public services such as health and education.

Hunger Reduction Commitment Index (HRCI)

Public Spending	Score	Year	HRCI rank of 45
Public spending on agriculture as share of total public spending ? 2014-2019 government expenditures on agriculture as share of total government expenditures (Percentage) Green if >=10 Yellow if <10 and >=7.5 Red if <7.5 IFPRI (SPEED database), ReSAKSS calculations using IMF Government Statistics and African Union https://www.resakss.org/map https://www.ifpri.org/publication/2019-global-food-policy-report	10%	2019	Joint 8th
Public spending on health as share of total public spending ? 2017 government expenditure on health as a share of total government expenditure (Percentage) Green if >=15 Yellow if <15 and >=11.25 Red if <11.25 WHO Global Health Observatory Data Repository https://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.HEALTHFINANCING	6.1%	2017	Joint 24th

Policies	Score	Year	HRCI rank of 45
Access to land (security of tenure) ? 2005-2019 Assesses the existence of an institutional, legal and market framework for secure land tenure and the procedure for land acquisition and accessibility to all. The Ratings Scale goes from 6 (high) through 1 (low), as follows: 6 - Good for an 3 years 5 - Good 4 - Moderately Satisfactory 3 - Moderately Unsatisfactory 2 - Unsatisfactory 1 - Unsatisfactory for 3 years Green if >=4 Yellow if between 2.99 AND 4 Red if <=2.99 The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) https://www.ifad.org/documents/38714170/41133079/Annex_A.pdf	Moderate	2019	Joint 30th
Access to agricultural research and extension services ? 2004-2019 This indicator assesses to what extent the agricultural research and extension system is accessible to poor farmers, including women farmers, and is responsive to the needs and priorities of the poor farmers. Coding is done in the same manner as for the ‘security of access to land’ indicator. Green if >=4 Yellow if between 2.99 AND 4 Red if <=2.99 The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) https://www.ifad.org/documents/38714170/41133079/Annex_A.pdf	Very Strong	2019	1st
Civil registration system — coverage of live births ? 2010-2019 Percentage of children under five years of age who were registered at the moment of the survey. Green if >=90 Yellow if between 70 AND 90 Red if <=70 UNICEF: DHS/MICS https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-protection/birth-registration/	65.6%	2015	27th
Functioning of social protection systems ? 2018-2020 10 = Social safety nets are comprehensive. 7 = Social safety nets are well developed, but do not cover all risks for all strata of the population. 4 = Social safety nets are rudimentary and cover only few risks for a limited number of beneﬁciaries. 1 = Social safety nets do not exist. Green if >=7 Yellow if between 3 AND 6 Red if <=2 Transformation Index of the Bertelsmann Stiftung (BTI) https://www.bti-project.org/en/home/	Weak	2018	Joint 8th

Laws	Score	Year	HRCI rank of 45
Level of constitutional protection of the right to food ? 2014-2019 Strong = 3 Explicit all citizens, specific groups or incorporated under living standards AND/OR Ratified international law (automatically assigned equal status as constitutional law) Moderate = 2 Implicit as part of a broader right in constitutional law. Weak = 1 Directive Principle (not justiceable) OR Likely or confirmed equality of ratified international lay to national legislation Green if 3 Yellow if 2 Red if 1 FAO information paper and FAO web database on Right to Food (FAOLEX). https://www.fao.org/docrep/016/ap554e/ap554e.pdf ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/010/a0511e/a0511e00.pdf https://www.fao.org/faolex/country-profiles/en/	Weak	2019	Joint 29th
Equality of women’s access to agricultural land ? 2015-2019 Score based on women’s legal rights and de facto rights to own and/or access agricultural land. Value based on the following scale: 1: Women and men have the same legal rights and secure access to land assets, without legal exceptions regarding some groups of women. Customary, religious and traditional laws or practices do not discriminate against women’s legal rights. 0.75: Women and men have the same legal rights and secure access to land assets, without legal exceptions regarding some groups of women. However, some customary, religious or traditional practices or laws discriminate against women’s legal right. 0.5: Women and men have the same legal rights and secure access to land assets. However, this does not apply to all groups of women. 0.25: Women and men have the same legal rights to own land assets; but not to use, make decisions and/or use land assets as collateral. 0: Women do not have the same legal rights as men to own land assets (note: in HANCI calculation, the scoring used in the original source is reversed for consistency) Green if 1 Yellow if 0.5 Red if 0 Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) accessed via OECD’s Gender, Institutions and Development Database (GID-DB) https://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?datasetcode=GIDDB2019	In Law, not in Practice	2019	Joint 37th
Equality of women’s economic rights ? 2019 The extent to which women have equal economic rights in law and in practice. 0: there were no economic rights for women in law and systematic discrimination based on sex may have been built into law. 1: women had some economic rights under law, but these rights were not effectively enforced. 2: women had some economic rights under law, and the government effectively enforced these rights in practice while still allowing a low level of discrimination against women in economic matters. 3: all or nearly all of women’s economic rights were guaranteed by law and the government fully and vigorously enforces these laws in practice. Green if 3 Yellow if 1 OR 2 Red if 0 The Cingranelli-Richards (CIRI) Human Rights Data Project https://www.humanrightsdata.com/	Not in Law	2019	Joint 16th
Constitutional right to social security ? 1996-2019 The Constitution clearly references a right to social security (see Annex II of the source document). 0= No; 1=Yes Red if 0 Green if 1 FAO information paper and other sources ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/010/a0511e/a0511e00.pdf	No	2012	Joint 26th

Nutrition Commitment Index (NCI)

Public Spending	Score	Year	NCI rank of 45
Separate budget for nutrition ? 2017-2019 0 = no budgets or where no confirming information could be found; 0.5 = sectoral budgets for nutrition; 1 = separate budget line for nutrition Red if 0 Green if 1 SUN Compendium of fiches; IDS Nutrition Governance; Save the Children Nutrition Barometer; WHO Landscape Analysis; Global Nutrition Report (N4G tracking tables). https://globalnutritionreport.org/the-report/nutrition-for-growth-tracking-tables/ https://scalingupnutrition.org/	Sectoral only	2019	Joint 16th

Policies	Score	Year	NCI rank of 45
Vitamin A supplementation coverage for children ? 1996-2018 The percentage of children aged 6-59 months who received 2 high doses of vitamin A supplements within the last year. Green if >=90 Yellow if between 70 AND 90 Red if <=70 MICS Indicators, UNICEF field offices and WHO, author calculations based on government data https://data.unicef.org/topic/nutrition/vitamin-a-deficiency/	85%	2018	15th
Government promotes complementary feeding ? 2010-2019 Whether governments promote complementary feeding practices of children aged 6–9 months and continued breastfeeding of children at ages 12–15 and 20–23 months. 0 = no; 1= yes Red if 0 Green if 1 Sun Reports; world breast feeding trends initiative https://worldbreastfeedingtrends.org/ https://scalingupnutrition.org/	Yes	2014	Joint 1st
Population with access to an improved water source ? 2017-2019 The percentage of population with access to an improved drinking-water source. Green if >=90 Yellow if between 70 AND 90 Red if <=70 Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for water supply and Sanitation - WHO/UNICEF https://washdata.org/data	84.4%	2017	16th
Population with access to improved sanitation ? 2016-2019 The percentage of population with access to improved sanitation facilities not shared with other households. Green if >=90 Yellow if between 70 AND 90 Red if <=70 Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for water supply and Sanitation - WHO/UNICEF https://washdata.org/data	48.4%	2017	12th
Health care visits for pregnant women ? 2007-2019 Percentage of women aged 15–49 years attended at least once during pregnancy by skilled health personnel (doctor, nurse or midwife) Green if >=90 Yellow if between 70 AND 90 Red if <=70 UNICEF: DHS/MICS https://data.unicef.org/	84.7%	2015	35th
Nutrition features in national development policy ? 2019 The total count of key search terms in a selected policy document divided by the number of pages in the document. Search terms: nutritio.; undernutrition/under-nutrition; malnutrition/mal-nutrition nutrient; diet.; stunt.; wasting/wasted; short-for-age; short for age; height-for-age; height for age; weight-for-age; weight for age; weight for height; weight-for-height; Underweight; under-weight; Low birth weight; Thinness; Micro-nutrient; micronutrient; 1000 days; one thousand days; Breastfeed.; Behavior change; behaviour change; Iron deficiency anaemi/anemi; Zinc; Deworm; de-worm; Vitamin A; Supplementary feed; complementary feed. Green if rank is >=31 Yellow if rank is 16 to 30 Red if rank is <=15 web-based searches.	Moderate	2016-2020	28th
National Nutrition Policy/Strategy ? 2019 Whether a national nutrition policy, plan or strategy exists. 1: Yes 0:No Red if 0 Green if 1 EIU Global Food Security Index https://foodsecurityindex.eiu.com/	Yes	2019	Joint 1st
Multisector and multistakeholder policy coordination ? 2019 Whether a multisectoral and multistakeholder coordination mechanism exists: 0 = no; 1 = yes Red if 0 Green if 1 SUN fiches/Country docs and unpublished SUN country documents https://scalingupnutrition.org/	Yes	2019	Joint 1st
Time bound nutrition targets ? 2019 Whether governments identify time bound nutrition targets in public policy documents: 0= no; 1 = yes Red if 0 Green if 1 SUN Movement Annual Progress Reports; Global Nutrition Report https://globalnutritionreport.org/ https://scalingupnutrition.org/	Yes	2019	Joint 1st
National nutrition survey in last 3 years ? 2005-2020 Has there been a Demographic and Health Survey / Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey /comparable national nutrition survey in the past three years? 1: Yes if the survey was dated 2013 or thereafter, or currently underway. 0: No new survey undertaken after 2013. Red if 0 Green if 1 UNICEF, DHS and national nutrition surveys https://dhsprogram.com/data/available-datasets.cfm https://mics.unicef.org/surveys	Yes	2019-2020	Joint 1st

Laws	Score	Year	NCI rank of 45
Enshrine ICBMS in domestic law ? 2019 The extent to which the International Code for Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes is enshrined in law. 4 = ICBMS is fully in law. 3 = Many provisions of ICBMS are in law. 2 = Few provisions are in law. 1 = No legal measures. Green if 4 Yellow if 2 or 3 Red if 1 ‘Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes: National Implementation of the International Code, Status Report 2018.’ https://www.who.int/nutrition/publications/infantfeeding/code_report2018/en/	Not Enshrined in Law	2019	Joint 33rd