ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how each colonel handled and managed the long-standing challenge, which could have been by far the least daunting of all challenges given Mauritania's endowment in natural resources. It examines Mauritania's colonels' macroeconomic performance but more specifically the policies and environment they created for economic development activities. The 1978 junta, the Military Committee for National Recovery (CMRN), of which Colonels Ould Saleck, Ould Haidalla, and Ould Taya were members, promised to straighten up Mauritania's economy and put the country on an economic development path, which, it argued, the fallen regime was unable to do. To reiterate, because of its small population and vast natural resources, Mauritania is, without a doubt, one of the African countries with the highest potential for a rapid economic growth. Yacoub Ould Moine highlights the dismal ranking of Mauritania on a number of economic governance measurements, including "Doing Business".
