Paper long abstract:

Nouakchott, the capital city of Mauritania was founded in 1956. What was then a settlement of a few thousands have now grown into a city of nearly one million inhabitants, of which the majority are sedentarised nomads who have left the rural areas and their traditional livelihood in response to a complex of entanglements; severe droughts, profound political transformations and disruption of the socio-economic fabric of the nomadic livelihood.

The rapid and unmediated growth of Nouakchott has put tremendous pressure on infrastructure, in particular water services. As a response to the widespread lack of water, particularly during the dry season, the government, in collaboration with a host of international donors, has initiated the country's largest development project to date: the Aftout Essahili project, which will bring water from the River Senegal some 200 kilometers to the South directly to Nouakchott via pipelines.

This paper investigates this ongoing project.