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Mauritania is presented as the quiet success of the series: growth averaging 5.6% over five years, public debt down from 47% to 41% of GDP and heading to 38%, a balanced budget, revenue of 23.5% of GDP, reserves covering almost six months of imports, and an IMF programme with a Resilience and Sustainability Facility that has passed five reviews on schedule. The Greater Tortue Ahmeyim gas field has begun exporting and narrowed the current-account deficit from 9.4% to 3.4% of GDP.
The framework still caps the country at Category 2 for one reason: it has no rating and no market access. Its fundamentals resemble a BB– credit, while its financing is that of a low-income programme country. Other constraints are institutional and social: governance percentiles in the 20s, non-performing loans near 20%, iron ore at 45–50% of exports and gold at about 25%, 80% informality, food-driven inflation of 7.6% in April 2026, and growing pressure from the Sahel, where more than 300,000 Malian refugees are already hosted.
The road map aims to turn a programme into a market. Because gas revenue could double public receipts within a decade, the paper argues that the fiscal rule and sovereign fund must be in law before production reaches plateau. In other resource economies in the series, the revenue arrived before the institutions did.
Key findings
- The single most important institutional act identified is legislating a gas fiscal rule anchored on the non-resource primary balance, together with a sovereign-fund allocation.
- Diversification means processing rather than new sectors: iron-ore pelletising and direct-reduced iron using gas, gold refining, fish processing, and green-hydrogen projects with offtake.
- A debt-management office and rating engagement would lead to a first regional or international issue of USD 300–500 million once gas revenue is visible.
- In the banking sector, the road map calls for an asset-quality review and consolidation to halve non-performing loans, with mobile money lifting inclusion from 55% toward 70%.
- A strategic cereal reserve and lean-season transfers indexed to the Cadre Harmonisé would aim to bring lean-season food insecurity below 10%.
- The target for years three to five is a B+/BB– rating, the top commodity below 40% of exports and poverty under 20%.
Summary of the paper; the full analysis is in the PDF.