• Government, ESCWA, and experts meet to shape national framework
  
  
• Plan aims to fight corruption, cut costs, and train blockchain talent
  

Mauritania is advancing a national blockchain policy to modernize its digital infrastructure, aiming to create more transparent and efficient public services through secure data systems. The initiative moved forward on Thursday as the Ministry of Digital Transformation and Administration Modernization held a consultative forum to develop the framework.

The event, organized in partnership with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), brought together experts from government, finance, and academia to shape the policy.

The ministry said blockchain adoption "will contribute to the protection of rights, the fight against corruption, and the reduction of conflicts, while creating an attractive investment environment for domestic and international investors in digital finance and innovation." The policy will also train a new generation of digital skills and blockchain startups through updated university programs, pilot projects, and experimental models.

This initiative is part of Mauritania's "National Digital Transformation Agenda 2022-2025." The country currently ranks 165th globally on the UN E-Government Development Index (EGDI) with a score of 0.3491, below both African and global averages.

The ministry estimates the policy will directly impact citizens by accelerating administrative procedures, reducing costs, and improving service quality in key sectors like land management, commerce, public procurement, and natural resource tracking. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recognizes this public service transformation potential, noting applications in identity management, financial transactions, and secure information sharing between government agencies.

The OECD has also identified potential implementation challenges, including data immutability, privacy concerns, limited data storage capacity, governance issues, high costs, complexity, limited scalability, and the significant energy consumption of some blockchain models.

Isaac K. Kassouwi