Immorim and CCFE: Maro Hadiya Diagana at the service of construction, real estate and support for entrepreneurs in Mauritania

In this interview, Maro Hadiya Diagana, a Mauritanian entrepreneur and director of Immorim and the CCFE, analyzes the role of the private sector in Mauritania’s economic development, with a focus on investment opportunities, the construction sector (BTP), real estate, and major infrastructure projects. She explains that Mauritania is experiencing significant momentum driven by gas projects, urban development, construction, infrastructure modernization, and the influx of foreign investors.

Through Immorim, she highlights the challenges faced by local construction companies in Mauritania, particularly regarding access to financing, a shortage of skilled labor, international standards, and difficulties in accessing public procurement contracts. With the CCFE, Maro Hadiya Diagana also discusses the support provided to Mauritanian SMEs, including training for project leaders, business plan drafting, entrepreneurial coaching, business formalization, and pre- and post-financing assistance. Finally, she highlights female entrepreneurship in Mauritania, the importance of believing in one's project, and her ambitions to make Immorim and the CCFE indispensable players in supporting businesses, construction, real estate, and, eventually, industry in Mauritania.

Interview with Maro Hadiya Diagana, Mauritanian entrepreneur and leader of Immorim and the CCFE What is your overall vision today of the role of the private sector in the economic development of Mauritania?

Today, the private sector plays an essential role in the country’s economic development. It creates stable jobs, supports innovation, and also assists the government in its overall development strategy. It also acts as a bridge for foreign investors wishing to establish themselves in Mauritania, providing support for their setup and implementation. It is therefore crucial that the private sector works upstream with the government for the country’s development.

Your company, Immorim, operates in a strategic sector in Mauritania: construction and real estate. How do you analyze the country’s current needs in terms of infrastructure, construction, and urban development?

Today, there is great enthusiasm in Mauritania regarding the promotion of the country on an international scale, as well as regarding the major projects currently under construction. Mauritania has a real need for infrastructure, urban projects, and modernization. Our company is part of this national dynamic and seeks to offer innovative projects in the real estate sector as well as in the broader field of infrastructure in Mauritania.

What are the main challenges you currently face in your activities with Immorim?

The biggest challenge for Immorim in the construction sector remains, first and foremost, access to financing. There is also the issue of insufficiently skilled labor. When certain services must be performed, we are sometimes forced to call upon expertise from the sub-region or from abroad. We also encounter difficulties accessing certain public procurement contracts.

What specifically explains these difficulties in accessing public procurement?

It is primarily due to international standards, which remain very difficult for national companies to meet. This is why we are often forced to turn to companies from the sub-region or international partners in order to access these public markets.

With projects related to gas, infrastructure, and the country's economic development, Mauritania is increasingly attracting the attention of investors. In your opinion, what are the concrete opportunities that will emerge for local construction and real estate companies in the coming years?

For local companies, the challenge is to be able to align with international standards in order to benefit from the major projects that will be implemented in the months and years to come. There are great opportunities in Mauritania through the gas project, new infrastructure projects, and projects related to investors coming to settle in the country. I therefore believe that local companies will have many opportunities.

Through the CCFE and your business support activities, what are the main needs of Mauritanian SMEs for successful growth today?

I always return to the challenge of skills. Today, Mauritania faces a problem of qualified human resources. There is also the question of financing. Many Mauritanian companies have the capacity to develop innovative projects, but they face a real financing problem. They also need support.

At the CCFE level, we have supported more than two thousand project leaders. This support covers both pre- and post-financing phases. For most of the projects we have executed, we have worked with partners such as the Ministry of Employment or donors like the European Union to implement support mechanisms for project leaders identified both in Nouakchott and in the interior of the country.

For the past ten years, we have been supporting these partners in the design and execution of these projects. For example, we have just completed a project led by the AFD and Action Against Hunger, called PADEM, dedicated to supporting project leaders in Mauritania. Over a two-year period, we supported four hundred entrepreneurs from the startup phase to the granting of financing by a state institution.

When we talk about this type of program, it involves comprehensive support—from the ideation of the project to financing. This includes drafting business plans, preparing for jury presentations, supporting company formalization at the "one-stop-shop," preparing financial dossiers for financial partners, coaching project leaders, and then obtaining the first tranche of funding. Our last project of this type ended at the end of April.

You are one of the female figures of Mauritanian entrepreneurship. What message do you wish to convey to young entrepreneurs, particularly women who wish to start businesses in Mauritania?

The advice I want to give to young people and women who wish to undertake business in Mauritania is first to believe in themselves. It is very important. You must believe in your skills, believe in your dreams, and give yourself the necessary means to achieve them.

I started my first company, the CCFE, with 500 euros. Today, we have become a group. We are able to develop businesses and rise to the challenge of major projects in Mauritania. If we do not have this ambition and this deep conviction that our project can succeed, we cannot make it. For someone who started with 500 euros while initially wanting to be a doctor, it shows that you must believe in your project.

When you look at the next five years, what are your ambitions for your various companies, particularly Immorim and the CCFE?

My ambition is to be an indispensable leader in these sectors. I wouldn't say I am not already one in certain areas. For example, for the CCFE, we are already leaders in training and supporting project leaders. But in the next five years, I want to be the woman I have always wanted to be—a leader in support and business assistance, but also in the construction sector.

Beyond these activities, I am also thinking about other sectors, particularly industry. I am the daughter of an industrialist, so I naturally have the ambition to one day follow that path as well.