Nouakchott (Mauritania) The development of a nation depends on the investment in the education of women and girls as such UNFPA will continue to assist Mauritania for the place and rights of girls and women to continue to be promoted, UNFPA Executive Director Babatunde Osotimehin said on 11 January after the  Social Affairs, Children and Family Affairs, Ms Aicha Vall Verges, gave him a tour of the Training Centre for Women’s Promotion in the capital. 

Dr Osotimehin congratulated the government and the ministry for promoting gender equality as more women are occupying leadership positions both at political and corporate levels. “The country is on the right direction, we have to accelerate the pace. In terms of training, we need to scale up for more women and girls to get skills. Also, the country has achieved a lot in primary education yet still more needs to be done in secondary and tertiary education.” 

It should be noted that in the last three years, women’s access to decision making positions has increased. There are 31 women among the 147 MPs in the National Assembly and 9 women among the 56 senators; six mayors out of 218 while 25.2% of civil servants are women.

Thanking UNFPA for all the support to her department, the minister Ms Verges hailed the strategic partnership that have bare fruits such as the support to the vocational training centre or the Family dispute units which help women in resolving disputes, mediation, legal assistance to get child support from spouses etc. 

The Executive Director asserted UNFPA's continued support to women at all levels within the framework of its mandate, expressing happiness that Mauritania has draft bills against FGM (prevalence reduced from 72% in 2003 to 69.4% at present) and against sexual violence while it has a bill on sexual and reproductive health. 

The training Centre for Women’s Promotion is a pilot centre with three branches in the district of Nouakchott with a capacity to train 240 girls per year. 

The centre, set up by the government to ensure vocational training for marginalized out of school girls coming from deprived urban and rural settings, has trained 2768 girls from 2006 to 2013. It is supported by UNFPA through provision of equipment for the several workshops namely sewing, haircut, pastry, cookery, computer maintenance and secretariat. UNFPA also helped girls who finished their trainings open their own restaurant.

M’roum C. Dieng, 22, studying secretariat at the centre, said that her 14 classmates and herself joined the centre after a rigourous selection through an entrance exam. “Only the best are selected. I was lucky to get my baccalaureate in the technical field then sat for the exam.”

When asked why she was getting the training, she said “I want to fend for myself after the two-year training because it is not good to stay idle at home. I believe girls should be given the chance to be do higher education and be intellectuals too.”

M’roum added that the school fees were covered by the centre and after their final exam they will have to sit for another exam to enter the Civil Service. “Only the best will be chosen. Those who won’t make it will have to go seek jobs in the private sector,” she pointed out.

As a reminder, Dr Osotimehin, who is the first UNFPA executive director to visit Mauritania in the last 15 years, arrived on Saturday for a two-day working visit to, among others, exchange with the Mauritanian leader Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz on critical issues such as ICPD beyond 2014 and the integration of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights - SRHR in the post 2015 development agenda during his tenure as chairman of the African Union in 2014.