Three instruments, six weeks, six hundred kilometres of desert.

The context

SNIM mines iron ore at Zouérate and hauls it to the coast along a railway that crosses six hundred kilometres of desert. Two operations had to be appraised in parallel: the extension of the mining railway, and the construction of a 12 MW photovoltaic plant to power the site.

The financing came from the African Development Bank, and therefore fell under its Integrated Safeguards System. The schedule allowed six weeks, not six months.

The brief

Three distinct instruments, to be run at once, each answering a different requirement:

• The environmental and social impact statement for the railway extension and the plant, prepared under OS 1 to OS 10: baseline, applicable framework, impact analysis and measures.
• The stakeholder participation plan: mapping of actors, participation strategy, grievance redress mechanism.
• The compliance audit of the photovoltaic plant already in service, against Mauritanian regulation and the Bank’s requirements.

The method

A railway is a linear right of way: its impacts cannot be read at a single point, only along the whole alignment. The survey therefore proceeded marker by marker, following the line, documenting the environments crossed, the existing structures and the uses made of the land alongside.

The plant audit followed a different logic: a joint inspection of the installation in service, checked point by point against the applicable requirements, producing the gaps found and the corrective measures needed.

Working in the desert imposes its own constraints, access, heat, distance. They are managed by planning the field sequences and processing the data as it comes in rather than on return.

The outcome

All three documents were delivered on time. The participation arrangements gave the project an identified entry point for grievances, and the audit handed the operator a prioritised list of gaps, usable immediately.

The assignment opened a second engagement in Mauritania: the review of the resettlement action plan and the impact assessment of a 220 MW hybrid solar and wind plant, under way since 2026.