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Digital tools hold great potential for promoting children's health and wellbeing. This is the case for REEFI, the innovative mobile application developed by FAO in collaboration with Mauritania's Institut Supérieur du Numérique.

The app is an educational game and through playing teaches children about their rights and body needs. It helps to prevent children from being exposed to risks and to protect their health in different farm settings. The application, launched in January 2024 in Mauritania, follows the pioneering model of the original REEFI app developed by FAO in Lebanon ("REEFI" means "my rural place" in Arabic), but adapted to the context and evidence of the situation of children in Mauritania.

Available data from 2015 shows that children involved in child labour in Mauritania accounts for 37.6 percent, which affects around 24,516 children aged between 5 and 17 years. The evidence collected through the UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) reveals that too many boys and girls end up working instead of going to school, are too tired from working activities to benefit from the education they receive or are involved in hazardous work.

Children in rural areas (45 percent) are more likely to be in child labour than those who live in cities (27 percent). Twenty-six percent of children that work in dangerous conditions are found in agricultural production, fishing, and livestock farming. Hence, the app aims mostly at children and young people living in rural areas and in the agricultural field. The application can also serve as a tool to promote behavioural change about child labour in agriculture among teachers, parents, and members of the community. 

From the pilot test with groups of children and youth, we have observed that the app can foster knowledge sharing on the subject of child labour by professionals such as agricultural workers, elementary and high school teachers, rural educators, and labour inspectors. Furthermore, Child Protection Committees (CCPCs), health professionals, and members of producer organizations can lead discussions around children's role in farm-related tasks thanks to this tool.

The game consists in selecting your character, who will be the protagonist – a rural child aged 14 and over. Why this age? This reflects the minimum age for admission to employment in Mauritania. How do you progress in the game? Your character gains seeds as a symbolic reward for completing the tasks correctly and safely. To unlock each level, the player must choose the right prevention and protection measures to avoid the environmental, physical, and chemical hazards they will find along the way.

As reflected in the narrative of the game, Mauritania took some steps forward in reducing child labour. However, this complex social issue remains a challenge. Child labour is generally defined as work that harms the well-being of children or hinders their education, development, and their future means of subsistence. In particular, the involvement of children in hazardous work is one of the worst forms of child labour that must be eliminated as a matter of urgency.

In 2022 the Government launched a new National Plan of Action for the Elimination of Child Labour (PANETE-RIM). The country is also a member of the Alliance 8.7 as a pathfinder country, which means that it made the commitment to accelerate efforts to achieve SDG Target 8.7, which calls to end child labour in all its forms. Being a pathfinder country materializes in practice through the development and implementation of practical and relevant legislation, national action plans or policies on child labour.

Agriculture accounts for 70 percent of child labour in the world – 112 out of 160 million children – and is one of the three most dangerous sectors, along with mining. On this basis and as part of its broader efforts, FAO developed the application with the objective of adapting it to different agricultural and farming contexts to enable rural children and young people to learn how to protect their health. The intention behind the design of the app is also to have children and young people to act as agents of change, relaying simple messages on safe farming practices in their communities.

The original REEFI app developed by FAO in Lebanon: