West Africa Regional Communications Infrastructure Program – Mauritania (WARCIP)

The West Africa Regional Communications Infrastructure Program (WARCIP) — Mauritania component was a US$30 million World Bank/IDA credit, alongside European Investment Bank co-financing for a national data centre, approved in 2013 to extend fibre-optic connectivity beyond the capital Nouakchott to regional towns including Atar, Choum, Boghé, Kaédi, Kiffa, Rosso, Sélibaby, Aïoun and Néma.

It was implemented through Mauritania's National Company for the Development of Digital Infrastructures (SDIN) in partnership with International Mauritania Telecom, and built by contractor ZTE under a World Bank-financed contract.

By project closure in January 2022 — more than three years behind the original schedule — around 1,700km of fibre had been laid across five backbone links plus a Nouakchott loop. Localities with broadband access rose from 144 to 221 against a target of 200, and population broadband access rose from a 2% baseline to 71%, far exceeding an 11% target. Wholesale broadband prices fell from roughly US$7,000 a month to about US$54.70 a month, close to a US$250 target. SDIN reported about US$2.13 million in backbone transit revenue between 2021 and the first quarter of 2022, indicating the network continued generating income after the project's formal completion.

The project's Implementation Completion Report explicitly documents the roughly three-year schedule overrun as a lesson; Mauritania's Sahel security context near Mali was flagged as an implementation risk at appraisal, and no independent corruption or governance audit was found in available sources.