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  • Publication | 2025

Delivering shock-responsive social protection in the Sahel: Urban social cash transfer response amid rising food inflation – Lessons from Nouakchott, Mauritania

Global Food and Nutrition Security

The 2023 urban shock-responsive cash transfer pilot project in the Mauritanian capital forms part of WFP’s support to governments in the region in their efforts to build social protection systems.

In 2023, people in Nouakchott, Mauritania, experienced a steep increase in the cost of food and an overall upward rise in the cost of living, putting many at risk of acute food insecurity and malnutrition as they struggled to meet their basic needs. WFP responded by working with the Government of Mauritania to pilot the extension of one of the country’s national shock-responsive social safety net programmes - El Maouna - to households in the Mauritanian capital.