Mauritania Fails to Meet Global Standards on Non-Profit Organizations

Lack of Compliance with Global Standards Criticized

A recent report by the Mauritania Economic Review (MER) has criticized the country’s lack of compliance with global standards on non-profit organizations (NPOs). The report highlights several shortcomings in Mauritania’s approach to NPOs, including its failure to identify sectors that fall under the definition of NPOs and a lack of risk assessment process related to the sector.

Shortcomings Identified

The report identifies several areas where Mauritania falls short of global standards. These include:

• Failure to conduct a risk assessment process related to NPOs, leaving it vulnerable to terrorist financing (TF) risks
• Lack of identification of sectors that fall under the definition of NPOs
• Absence of information on how terrorist actors abuse NPOs

Efforts to Address Shortcomings

Despite these shortcomings, Mauritania has taken several steps to address them. These include:

• Issuing Law No. 017-2019, which defines charities in line with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)
• Conducting its National Risk Assessment (NRA) process, including for NPOs
• Identifying all NPOs subject to the FATF definition and specifying characteristics and types of associations that are likely to be exposed to TF risks due to their activities or characteristics

Key Findings

The report highlights several key findings, including:

• There are 7,799 NPOs registered in Mauritania, but only 100 of them are considered to be at risk of TF abuse
• Article 23 of the AML/CTF law requires these NPOs to deposit donations and transaction amounts in a bank account
• The NRA concluded that there are almost no threats posed by terrorist entities to NPOs, and that cases have not been identified where terrorist actors have abused these organizations

Recommendations for Improvement

The report makes several recommendations for improvement, including:

• Addressing the absence of information on how terrorist actors abuse NPOs
• Evidence of execution of outreach programs
• Development of best practices to address TF risks
• Enhancing supervision over NPOs by the Commission on Human Rights, Humanitarian Action and Relations with Civil Society

Conclusion

Despite efforts to address shortcomings, Mauritania still needs to improve its approach to NPOs. The report highlights several areas where improvement is needed, including enhancing supervision over NPOs and developing best practices to address TF risks.