MAURITANIA / URBAN UPGRADES

Drought and poverty over the years have sent tens of thousands of Mauritanians flocking to the country's cities in search of better life. Many of them live in shantytowns, with little or no basic services. A government project is now working to improve the conditions for these people, beginning with improved housing, health and education. WORLD BANK

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:02:06
• Production Date: 28 January 2011
• Asset Language: Original
• Corporate Name: WORLD BANK
• Subject Topical: ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT; FINANCING
• Geographic Subject: MAURITANIA
• MAMS Id: U110128e

Description

STORY: MAURITANIA / URBAN DEVELOPMENT
TRT: 2.06
SOURCE: WORLD BANK
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: HASANIYA / FRENCH / NATS

DATELINE: NOVEMBER 2010, NOUAKCHOTT, MAURITANIA

Shotlist

1. Med shot, pregnant women walking
2. Med shot, same women at clinic counter, exterior
3. Med shot, interior of clinic and women waiting
4. SOUNDBITE (French) Dr. Diagana Chouaibou, Chief Doctor of Kissal Health Center:
“This health center was created when there were only huts here, and people needed us, and so this center responds to their needs, we have medicines and everything else to meet their basic health requirements.”
5. Med shot, woman with baby walking into to see doctor
6. Close up, doctor’s face and pan down to baby
7. Close up, baby nursing, zoom out to doctor checking baby
8. Wide shot, classroom
9. Med shot, children’s faces in classroom
10. Close up, hands with pens writing
11. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Beyah Mkhetratt,Nessiba Primary School Teacher:
“The school helped change the way parents here think. They didn’t used to send their kids to school, now they do.”
12. Wide shot, Mena streets and electricity wires and poles
13. Wide shot, water tower
14. Wide shot, water kiosks
15. Close up, water jugs being filled
16. Wide shot, worker plastering wall
17. Wide shot, worker
18. Wide shot, woman sitting in courtyard of house being built
19. Wide shot, Salem Val exiting house and walking
20. Wide shot, Mena streets
21. Med shot, donkey and cart full of water jugs

Storyline

These pregnant and nursing mothers would once have had to travel up to five kilometers to get a medical checkup.

Now this health clinic has moved to where they live, in a shantytown area on the outskirts of Mauritania’s capital.

SOUNDBITE (French) Dr. Diagana Chouaibou, Chief Doctor of Kissal Health Center:
“This health center was created when there were only huts here, and people needed us, and so this center responds to their needs, we have medicines and everything else to meet their basic health requirements.”

The clinic, in the makeshift neighborhood of el Mena is part of Mauritania’s urban development project, providing some of the country’s poorest inner city neighborhoods with basic social services, in health, education and housing.
In addition to the health clinics, the project-supported by the World Bank- is building new schools in el Mena.

SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Beyah Mkhetratt,Nessiba Primary School Teacher
“The school helped change the way parents here think. They didn’t used to send their kids to school, now they do.”

The project also hooked up el Mena to the national grid and built paved roads to facilitate transport of people and goods in and out.

And a tower and kiosks were built to help store and distribute clean and safe water among el Mena’s thousands of households.

The Urban project has also given housing credits to thousands of el Mena residents to pay for new homes like this one, as well as legal titles to the land they lived on.