an impact on women who are often the poorest and most vulnerable. Further, the updated Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (CSLP) now includes a gender component which takes into consideration the specific needs of women in development. The activity rate among the male population between 15 and 65 years is 74.6% and only 34.4% for women of the same age categories. This gap is not an indication of the low level of activity among women because their participation in daily chores within the household in particular is not taken into account nor is it remunerated. 35.6% of female employment is in the trade sector, 15.5% in other market services and 13.1% in agriculture. Women represent 28.4% of the labour force. They are present in the trade sector – 31.6% against 63.99% – (gold and jewellery, clothes and veils, perfumes and luxury products) and dominate the market gardening (35.8% against 64.2%), arts and craft, leather trading and wool processing sectors. Women represent 23.3% of the global trade sector in Mauritania (including arts and craft). They have formed an association referred to as UMAFEC (Union of Mauritanian Women Entrepreneurs and Traders). In rural areas, women establish cooperatives for market gardening, local artisanal products and rural pharmacies. In the food industry, a woman enjoys a leading position on several segments of the market including dairy products or the first camel cheese celebrated by the media and international commercial institutions. Women have established several hotels and guesthouses in response to the country’s opening of its borders to tourism and in the area of computer technology, a woman established a plant to assemble PCs, provide IT services and represent Microsoft in the country. For the first time, three women became executive members of the Association of Mauritanian Employers (CNPEM) in 2003. Women have also benefitted from the development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), an emerging sector of the economy which favours gender parity. In the private sector, women manage cybercafés or service providing businesses, engage in the industrial sector assembling PCs made in Mauritania and in the hotel industry. Women in civil society are active through several NGOs advocating the development of information technology or for Mauritania to integrate the information society. This trend was facilitated by the constant support of public authorities for the empowerment of women which translated through the following actions among others: 63 - Affirmative action policy to foster jobs for women; - Promotion of vocational training for women; - Implementation of a micro-credit system by and for women (Nissa-Banques GFEC);