Chronic food insecurity and malnutrition are prevalent across Mauritania. Frequent droughts, limited natural resources, and widespread deforestation make it challenging to access affordable, abundant, and nutritious food.

Counterpart works to build the capacity of community health workers and community leaders to improve nutrition, water, and sanitation while also boosting school attendance by providing children with daily nutritious meals.

Counterpart’s The Future is Ours! McGovern-Dole Food for Education and Child Nutrition program in Mauritania is funded by the USDA. The program works in partnership with the government to reduce hunger, improve health, and strengthen the primary education system. The program, in effect from 2019 to 2024, distributes deworming medicines to students and distributes meals to 209 schools in the villages of the Brakna and Gorgol regions. During the 2023-2024 school year, the program provided over 16 million school meals to more than 72,000 children in Mauritania.

An integral component of McGovern-Dole is literacy improvement and teacher training. Counterpart and its partner, ARED, have developed teacher training curriculum and textbooks, which the Ministry of Education is adopting for use nationwide.