Mauritania, a laboratory for the vulnerabilities of Sahelian information ecosystems
Photograph of the author, Nicolas Henin
by Nicolas Henin, Project Consultant, author, and journalist
Is it because it is too small, too complex, marginal, or not a priority? Whatever the case, Mauritania has so far been relatively free from the torrent of disinformation sweeping across the Sahel, a group of five countries bordering the Sahara to the south, Mauritania, Chad, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso, the last three of which formed a pro-Kremlin alliance following coups and the installation of junta regimes. This should be seen as an opportunity to conduct an ex-ante analysis and assess vulnerabilities in order to draw up a programme of measures to strengthen information resilience in anticipation of possible large-scale operations in the region and elsewhere. In this blog, I will assign these vulnerabilities to three classificatory categories: first, those related to socio-demographic and technical factors; second, those arising from the economic environment; and finally, those related to local practices, the use of information, or the regulatory environment.
Mauritania is a vast country (over one million square kilometres), but mostly desert. It has only 5 million inhabitants. It is a very young country, with 35% of the population under the age of twelve and nearly half under the age of 18. It is also located on the border between two large geographical areas: North Africa, which is Arabic-speaking, and the sub-Saharan region, where various local languages are spoken, with the former colonial language, French, often used as an ‘intermediate language’. Finally, it is a poor country with major development challenges, including a recent crisis in the education system and serious difficulties in providing basic education for young people.
These geographical considerations have consequences for the information ecosystem: the media (and the social media on which their content is often shared) are segmented into linguistic areas. Information circulates in a fragmented manner and to varying degrees depending on the interests of ethnic and linguistic communities. Digital technology had promised to improve the circulation of information despite distances. However, technical constraints remain significant. For several reasons (competition control, investment costs, etc.), the internet infrastructure remains rudimentary: the country is connected to only one oceanic backbone, and access is mainly provided by mobile phones, with large areas without coverage and at a high cost. To fill the gaps in the network, many Mauritanians own several phones with lines from different operators, increasing costs and creating a security flaw: WhatsApp is widely used, but the most downloaded app is not the original developed by Meta but a clone that allows multiple accounts, with no security guarantees.
The small size of the Mauritanian market means that several tools commonly used to describe internet usage are not available, in particular Similarweb, which does not operate in smaller countries, presumably due to a lack of data allowing for reliable results. Internet penetration in the country was fairly late but rapid throughout the 2010s. Since then, it has stagnated at a ceiling of 55% of the population. Average speeds remain modest at 2.27 Mbps, with significant disparities between the largest urban centres and desert areas. Around a third of people accessing the internet are illiterate or have low literacy skills, which means that they mainly consume audiovisual products (images, audio messages, video), which require high bandwidth and lead to frustration due to poor connection and high costs.
It is difficult to assess the level of digital literacy among Mauritanians. Low levels of education limit digital use and increase exposure: lack of awareness of risks, relatively old devices, software that is sometimes pirated and often not updated. Data published by Cloudflare suggests that the Mauritanian web is technically vulnerable, although the situation is similar to that of other countries in the region.
The second major category of vulnerabilities is economic. The Mauritanian press had long enjoyed a reputation for quality, publishing recognised intellectuals, before its circulation collapsed and its revenues plummeted. The last newspapers practically ceased printing at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Some websites, such as Arabic-speaking Al Akhbar, francophone outlets Le Calame, and Cridem, or Le Quotidien de Nouakchott, RimNow and Sahara Media, that publish both in Arabic and French, still manage to attract a certain audience. But they are struggling to maintain it amid the proliferation of addictive content that is hugely boosted by platform recommendation algorithms.
The most attractive news content is blogs (or even simple Facebook pages) written by non-professional authors, who compete with traditional media with information that is mediocre at best.
Lack of resources is the main challenge facing Mauritanian media, which are all dependent on sponsors: several pro-government media outlets are funded directly or indirectly by the state, while ‘independent’ or opposition media are funded by wealthy businessmen. The government, born out of a military regime but liberalised and democratised since the last coup in 2008, has extensive powers that allow it to discreetly block the advertising revenue of any media outlet that is too critical.
The lack of funding has an impact on journalists' working conditions, making them highly dependent and even susceptible to corruption. Journalists routinely ask for a small amount of money to attend a press conference, and a little more to publish an article. The level of income does not motivate them to make an effort, and journalists are happy when their ‘source’, often institutional, provides them with a ready-made article.
A significant portion of media revenues does not come from their news departments but from internal communications activities aimed at producing tailor-made advertising content. While such activities are tolerated within professional standards, ethical rules require a clear separation between journalism and communications activities, which is not respected. Some Mauritanian journalists say they are eagerly awaiting training workshops organised by international donors: the per diem allowances, which were originally intended to cover their expenses, end up constituting a significant part of their income.
While African journalists are regularly invited to Moscow for ‘training’, we have not found any such invitations for Mauritanian journalists. However, Mohamed Fall Oumeir Beye, Director General of the Mauritanian News Agency (AMI), took part in a virtual round table organised by the Kremlin's propaganda arm on 8 June 2023, bringing together a panel of African media outlets. This event was covered in an article on Sputnik, which was shared by Mauritanian media outlets. It is unlikely that this videoconference meeting gave rise to the payment of a per diem allowance.
Financial fragility is also a challenge for organising capacity-building programmes. What is the point of training journalists if they know that they will not be able to find financially viable media outlets to employ them?
Economic difficulties are further compounded by multilingualism: while Mauritania has only 5 million inhabitants, the potential market for a media outlet can only hope to reach a fraction of that number, depending on the language in which it publishes or broadcasts. A few media outlets are multilingual, but the production costs for different languages are significant.
Television viewing habits reflect this: national television is unattractive and little-watched. The public mainly gets its news from foreign channels, depending on their language: Al-Jazeera or other pan-Arab channels for Arabic speakers, RTS (Radio Télévision du Sénégal) or France 24 for French speakers. This high consumption of foreign media poses a risk of interference and may ultimately weaken public debate, as people frame events from very different perspectives.
The last type of vulnerability is what we might call ‘structural’, and depends on cultural factors or factors related to communication practices. The persistent confusion between information and communication (discussed above and resulting, as we have seen, from economic imperatives) is one example.
Lack of training is another structural vulnerability. The only journalism school in the country, the ENA, is intended to train senior civil servants and magistrates, and virtually no longer teaches journalism. Few journalists are professionals, and many are forced to take on other jobs to earn a living. The most highly trained journalists are either quite old or were trained abroad: in Senegal, Morocco, Tunisia or Europe. The lack of training does not only affect media professionals. Communicators in institutions, large companies and government are very distrustful of the press, which they see as a threat rather than an opportunity, leading to a serious lack of transparency. While laws and regulations provide for a fairly good level of transparency, access to information is made very difficult by the reluctance of those in charge of communication. This culture of information retention leads to bland, boring and overly institutional media content.
While the internet has enabled several media outlets to survive, now almost all of them ‘pure players’ (media outlets that may have originally existed in both printed and online form but are now online only), it has also exposed them to competition from dubious, opportunistic or malicious websites. In the eyes of the public, the media no longer function as gatekeepers, filtering out of the mass of noise what deserves to be disseminated as verified information of legitimate interest.
The gatekeeper role of the mainstream media is also blurred by the spread of syndication, whether pirated or organised. Russian state media, or affiliated organisations such as Africa Initiative, thrive on these reposts. The articles it publishes on its website, social media or Telegram channel are then free to be republished by news sites that are not initially involved in propaganda but are looking for engaging and, above all, free content. These reposts are one of the main means of laundering state disinformation.
Even the most institutional media outlets, such as the state news agency Agence mauritanienne d'information (AMI), are attracted by this copyright-free content. It has signed an agreement with Sputnik allowing the republication of content produced by Sputnik, and vice versa.
Of course, in the face of these vulnerabilities, there are forces that enable the country to hold its ground. But the country will remain exposed to information manipulation operations as long as the weaknesses are not addressed. And these lessons apply, with some nuances, to all countries in the Sahel and much of West Africa.
This vulnerability study should make it possible to identify actions to prevent the development of malicious actors: creating a framework of trust in which professional, reliable and economically viable media can evolve. Improving the confidence of citizens and improving access to information by government institutions should be priorities for both the authorities and international development actors alike.