Abstract:
In the summer of 2002 the Commissariat for Human Rights, Poverty Alleviation, and Social Inclusion, an agency of the government of Mauritania, had to decide whether and how to modify its Twizé program of shelter and poverty assistance. The program had been piloted in the Dar el Beida resettlement area on the outskirts of Mauritania's capital, Nouakchott, in 1999 and then extended to three other similar resettlement areas in 2000 and 2001. But the Commissariat was worried that the pilot had been expensive, and that it could not afford to apply the Twizé program more widely in its current form.
Learning Objective:
The case is intended for a course in applied microeconomics and raises the issues of in-kind versus cash assistance for the poor and the use of consumers surplus to measure the benefits of government assistance.
