UNIVERSAL ACCESS IN MAURITANIACRITERIA OF UNIVERSAL ACCESS ZONING

摘要

The Universal Access Agency (UAA) of Mauritania aims to provide services of water, electricity andtelecommunications/NTICs rural and semi urban areas. The government of Mauritania aims to use a part of thepublic resources to attract investments and skills of the private sector to permit it to enhance its participation infinancing infrastructures for basic services in rural and semi urban areas. After conducting with success the first projects for more than 20,000 people, the UAA has now defined rural universal access areas in seven regions of the country. It defined an approach for Universal Access to services. First, it defined a number of areas which would be poles of development of Universal Access due to: (I) the importance ofthe population; (ii) the surroundings with many smaller villages; and (iii) a level of income insuring a reasonableprofitability. The level of profitability determines the rural electrification technology: solar or thermal one. Thechosen technology also determines the technologies for water supply and telecommunications/ITC. On the basis ofcall for tenders with negative bids, the management of the infrastructures has been attributed to private operatorswithin one of the usual schemes of delegation of services: simple management, lease or concession.