• Mauritania launches free digital portal for Official Gazette with 30,000+ texts

• Platform offers bilingual access, advanced search, and authenticated legal documents

• Project supports transparency, legal access, and broader digital modernization goals

Mauritania's government has inaugurated a free digital portal for the Official Gazette, the authorities announced on Monday.

The initiative aims to modernize access to legal texts, strengthen the transparency of public information, and facilitate the consultation of laws in force, which include more than 30,000 authenticated legislative and regulatory texts.

The new portal centralizes all editions of the Official Gazette since 1959, as well as a selection of laws, decrees, international conventions, and other regulatory texts. Available in Arabic and French, it includes an advanced search engine allowing legal professionals, investors, researchers, administrations, and citizens to access authenticated and updated versions.

The Official Gazette is the primary legal source attesting to the existence, entry into force, and authenticity of texts published by the state. Its digitization responds to a growing need to modernize procedures, reduce dissemination delays, and facilitate simplified access to the law amid an accelerated digital transformation.

The project is part of the World Bank-funded Western Africa Regional Digital Integration Program (WARDIP - Mauritania), which aims to support the country's administrative modernization. The project also includes a training program for executives from the Secretary General of Government, covering digital archiving, legal database management, and code updates to ensure the platform's reliability and sustainability.

Beyond the digitization of the Official Gazette, WARDIP plans to establish a public service interoperability framework, develop a government cloud, improve broadband access, and support innovation and start-ups. These actions aim to create an environment conducive to the digitization of public services and economic development.

The opening of the Official Gazette portal is expected to improve access to the law for citizens and jurisdictions, strengthen the transparency of public action, secure the regulatory environment for investors, and consolidate the rule of law.

Samira Njoya