Madar (Nouakchott) - Mauritania's Delegate General for National Documents is taking part, from Friday 6 to Sunday 8 November 2026, in an international forum entitled "New Approaches in Archival Science", organised in Istanbul by the State Archives administration of the Turkish Presidency and attended by more than 23 countries, the Mauritanian News Agency (AMI) reported on Saturday evening.
The forum reviews different experiences in preserving and promoting archival heritage around the world, according to the same source.
The Delegate General gave a lecture entitled "Mauritanian archives on the eve of the adoption of the 2026 law", in which he outlined the authorities' efforts to preserve and develop the country's documentary heritage: raising awareness of the role of archives in preserving national memory, administrative reform and financial transparency; improving the legal and institutional framework through a new national documents law; and building and equipping a National Documents headquarters to international standards at a cost of 550 million ouguiyas from the state budget, the agency said.
He described the main features of the new law, which he said covers paper and audiovisual archives and pays particular attention to colonial-era, administrative and diplomatic archives, the heritage of Chinguetti scholars abroad, as well as family archives and those of heritage towns. He also discussed foreign partnerships, which he described as a legal framework for recovering Mauritanian documents held abroad and an opportunity to draw on the successful experiences of fraternal and friendly countries.
The National Assembly passed the national documents bill on 2 November; the law sets a unified framework for collecting, classifying, preserving and providing access to national documents, and replaces Decree No. 68-294 of 15 October 1968 governing the national archives.
