Mauritania, a country in Western Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean, has a population of 3.8 million people with a life expectancy of 61 years (male) and 66 years (female). Mauritania’s health status is defined by high morbidity and mortality, especially among the most vulnerable groups. The National Health Development Plan 2012-2020, Mauritania’s national health strategy, includes five priority areas: reducing maternal and neonatal mortality, diminishing infant and child mortality, control of major communicable diseases as well as neglected tropical diseases, and control of non-communicable diseases. The fifth priority refers to strengthening health systems to support the other four areas and providing universal access to essential health services. Mauritania joined the UHC Partnership in 2019, which supports the assessment of health systems bottlenecks, the analysis of the health labour market as well as the institutionalization of health accounts. In 2019, Mauritania runs a service availability and readiness assessment, finalizes the Demographic and Health Survey and establishes the National Health Assembly, a platform for multi-stakeholder dialogue to develop the next phase of the national health financing strategy with regards to the attainment of UHC. You can access key country documents by clicking here.