Quick facts
Radio Mauritanie (إذاعة موريتانيا)
Country Mauritania (Nouakchott) Established Radio Nationale founded in Saint-Louis (1958); established in Nouakchott (1959); autonomous from TVM since 1990 Legal form Société anonyme (Radio Mauritanie S.A.) since 2011, under contrat-programme with the state Type State-owned national public-service radio broadcaster Network Flagship Radio Mauritanie plus 11 named regional radio stations; network expanding in 2026 (Ghabou inaugurated, Boghé foundation stone) Thematic stations Radio Jeunesse (youth, launched 2012); Radio Coran / Radio du Saint Coran (Quranic and religious, operational by at least 2014) Online radiomauritanie.mr Director-General Mohamed Abdelkader Ould Allada / Ould Alada, HAPA-approved on 10 January 2024 Ownership and status State-owned SA; part of the Pôle de l’audiovisuel public alongside TVM-SA and TDM-SA; PM appoints chair of the board Supervising ministry Ministry of Culture, Arts, Communication and Relations with Parliament, Government Spokesperson Regulator Haute Autorité de la Presse et de l’Audiovisuel (HAPA) Funding model Primarily public funding through state subsidy 2026 typology State-Controlled (SC)Typology trajectory
Radio Mauritanie · 2022 — 2026
2022 SC 2023 SC 2024 SC 2025 SC 2026 SC Continuous SC classification, 2022–2026SC = State-Controlled Media. See the State Media Matrix typology for definitions.
Radio Mauritanie is Mauritania’s national public-service radio broadcaster, delivering a mix of national news, cultural programming and regional coverage. The Radio Nationale de Mauritanie was first established under colonial-era broadcasting in Saint-Louis, Senegal, in 1958, before being constituted in Nouakchott in 1959 with rudimentary equipment and a limited transmission spectrum; it consolidated its national role after Mauritanian independence in November 1960 and was transferred fully to its permanent Nouakchott headquarters in 1962. From 1982 the radio was merged with the newly created Télévision de Mauritanie within the Office de Radio Télévision de Mauritanie (ORTM), before reverting to autonomous status alongside TVM in 1990. Council of Ministers decrees adopted in 2011 transformed both Radio Mauritanie and TVM into sociétés anonymes operating under a contrat-programme with the state, in the context of the wider audiovisual liberalisation that opened the sector to private broadcasters; the broadcaster is now formally Radio Mauritanie S.A., part of the public audiovisual cluster (Pôle de l’audiovisuel public) alongside TVM-SA and the transmission company Télédiffusion de Mauritanie (TDM-SA).
Media assets
Radio Mauritanie (إذاعة موريتانيا) — flagship national radio station, broadcasting in AM and FM
National network of regional and local stations — the official site lists 11 named regional stations (Néma, Timbédra, Rosso, Sélibaby, Kiffa, Kaédi, Brakna, Aioun, Nouadhibou, Tidjikja, Zouerate); government reporting in 2026 pointed to a broader expansion of local radio infrastructure, including the inauguration of the local station at Ghabou and the laying of the foundation stone at Boghé
Radio Jeunesse — youth-oriented station launched in 2012
Radio Coran / Radio du Saint Coran — Quranic and religious programming, operational by at least 2014
Ownership and governance
Radio Mauritanie is a state-owned société anonyme (Radio Mauritanie S.A.), having been transformed from a public administrative establishment by Council of Ministers decrees adopted in 2011 alongside the parallel reorganisation of TVM. The two companies operate under a contrat-programme with the state, and together with Télédiffusion de Mauritanie (TDM-SA), created in its current institutional form by Décret n°2024/PM/MCJSRP of 2 February 2024 and Loi 2024-018, form the public audiovisual cluster (Pôle de l’audiovisuel public). The Prime Minister appoints the President of the Board of Directors, and other board members are named through ministerial decree, mirroring the governance arrangements at TVM.
The broadcaster falls under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture, Arts, Communication and Relations with Parliament, Government Spokesperson, currently headed by El Houssein Ould Meddou, the former president of the Haute Autorité de la Presse et de l’Audiovisuel who was appointed to the cabinet portfolio in August 2024. The HAPA itself, which has been led by Mohamed Abdallahi Lahbib since September 2024, holds statutory approval power over appointments to public audiovisual bodies; the January 2024 approval of Ould Allada was issued under the amended HAPA framework, notably Law 2022-22 of 17 August 2022 amending Law 026-2008.
The current Director-General of Radio Mauritanie is Mohamed Abdelkader Ould Allada / Ould Alada, HAPA-approved on 10 January 2024, identified in his role in March 2026 reporting on a ceremony at which he received a recognition certificate from the Mauritanian section of the Union of Journalists of the African Free Press.
A 2024 amendment to the media law established an inter-ministerial advisory committee tasked with overseeing governance reforms at state media institutions including Radio Mauritanie. According to the State Media Monitor review, the committee has remained largely symbolic, with limited influence over actual appointments or editorial processes.
Source of funding and budget
Radio Mauritanie operates almost exclusively on state funding. The State Media Monitor baseline records a 2020 allocation of about MRU 104.64 million (approximately US$2.8 million), up from MRU 85.19 million the previous year, drawn from coverage of the 2020 increase in the state-media budget allocation; no more recent disaggregated annual operating budget for Radio Mauritanie was identified during this review. The broadcaster remains heavily reliant on government allocations, and Mauritania’s wider move to a programme-budget framework, implemented in full for the first time in the 2026 finance law under the Organic Law on Finance Laws (LOLF) of 2018, may improve the disaggregation of state-media allocations in future fiscal years.
A significant labour-development during the review period was the 11 June 2025 Council of Ministers announcement that the contracts of 1,865 public audiovisual journalists and media workers would be regularised, including staff at Radio Mauritanie, Télévision de Mauritanie, the Mauritanian News Agency (AMI) and Télédiffusion de Mauritanie. The International Federation of Journalists welcomed the decision as ending three decades of precarious pigiste employment; the measure addressed long-standing employment precarity but did not alter the governance structure or introduce editorial-independence safeguards.
Editorial independence
While there is no legal mandate compelling Radio Mauritanie to follow a pro-government editorial line, the State Media Monitor review records that the station does not operate under an independent editorial framework: no external oversight body, complaints mechanism or editorial charter has been established to guarantee impartiality. Expert commentary and content reviews carried out for the review reveal a pro-government tone, with emphasis on government activities and official state narratives.
The wider press-freedom environment in Mauritania deteriorated during the review period. In August 2025 the authorities permanently shut down the Arabic-language news website Anbaa.info on the basis of a complaint relayed through HAPA, citing alleged damage to Mauritania’s relations with Algeria, after the regulator had earlier rendered the site inaccessible for 60 days in March 2024. Prosecutions under the 2021 Law on the Protection of National Symbols continued to be brought against activists during 2025, and the same period also saw arrests and short-term detentions of journalists covering protests or publishing contested content, indicating that the deterioration extended beyond the Anbaa.info case alone. These wider developments form the backdrop against which the state broadcasters, TVM and Radio Mauritanie, operate.
These conditions place Radio Mauritanie firmly in the State-Controlled (SC) category. The broadcaster is a state-owned société anonyme operating under a contrat-programme with the state and forming part of Mauritania’s public audiovisual cluster alongside TVM S.A. and TDM S.A. Its governance remains executive-driven: the board chair is appointed by the Prime Minister, other board members are named through ministerial channels, and the Director-General is subject to HAPA approval within a state-led appointment process. The broadcaster remains primarily funded through public allocations, lacks a statutory editorial-independence safeguard or independent complaints mechanism, and operates in a media environment where regulatory and legal pressure on independent outlets intensified during the review period. The SC classification therefore remains unchanged for 2026.
AI and digital policy
No Radio Mauritanie-specific published policy on AI-generated content, synthetic-media disclosure or content-provenance standards such as C2PA was identified. The broadcaster maintains a digital presence through its radiomauritanie.mr platform and offers online and satellite distribution alongside its terrestrial AM and FM transmission, but no sector-specific framework governing AI-generated or synthetic content in Mauritania’s state media was identified.
May 2026