Just hours after hosting NATO leaders at the Royal Palace, Queen Letizia changed perspective and landed in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania on the evening of Tuesday, 31 May.
Her Majesty is travelling with the Secretary of State for Cooperation, Pilar Cancela, and was welcomed at Nouakchott International Airport by First Lady Mariem Fadel Dah, the Spanish Ambassador to Mauritania Miriam Álvarez de la Rosa, and the Mauritanian Ambassador to Spain Boubacar Kane.
Also present were a group of children, who offered the Queen and other authorities milk and dates, a traditional form of welcome in the country.
She then moved to the Presidential Pavilion, where she was received by an “honour lineup” (meaning a lineup of authorities) and held a meeting with the officials that had already welcomed her.
The trip’s activities will begin on 1 June and will end on the following day, when she is scheduled to return to Madrid.
Spain’s cooperation projects in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania began in 1995, with the aim of eradicating poverty through different development areas, like rural integration and the consolidation of basic social services, especially the medical ones.
In 1998, Spain established the Technical Office for Cooperation in Mauritania, which is currently focused on working towards the “consolidation of the democratic process and the State of Right,” according to the Royal House’s website.
To achieve all of the aforementioned goals, there are currently 12 Spanish NGOs that work in the country, with focuses that vary from rural development to food security, from healthcare to gender equality.
This is the seventh cooperation trip that Queen Letizia has undertaken since becoming Queen Consort: her first was Honduras and El Salvador in 2014. It was followed by Senegal in 2017, the Dominican Republic and Haiti in 2018, Mozambique in 2019, Honduras in 2020 and Paraguay in 2021.
