RABAT, Morocco, 28 May 2024 -/African Media Agency(AMA)/-The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group has approved Morocco’s Country Strategy Paper (CSP) for the period 2024-2029.
This roadmap will serve the priorities of the Kingdom’s new development model to 2035, helping to strengthen the competitiveness and resilience of the Moroccan economy, support strong, sustainable growth, and consolidate the dynamics of economic and social inclusion.
“This new strategy sets the course, objectives and pace of our investments over the next five years in the Kingdom, our leading partner on the continent, with over 12 billion euros mobilized in strategic sectors,” said Achraf Tarsim, the Bank’s Country Manager for Morocco. “The Kingdom is a source of inspiration, a country that proves that vision, capacities and resources can make emergence a reality. With this new vision, our ambition is to move to the next level and strengthen the excellent partnership that has united us for almost 60 years”.
The roadmap’s two priorities are to strengthen inclusive growth through skills development, employability and entrepreneurship, and to consolidate the economy’s resilience to exogenous shocks by deploying sustainable infrastructure.
The new CSP innovates through its “water-energy” nexus approach that will make it possible to develop more integrated projects that alleviate water stress and support strong, inclusive growth.
The result of wide-ranging consultations with public and private stakeholders, the new country strategy draws on the lessons of the previous CSP, which helped consolidate Morocco’s significant progress in socio-economic development.
Over the 2017-2023 period of the previous vision, the Bank mobilized nearly 3 billion euros and supported Morocco’s efforts to increase access to drinking water and desalination, support the modernization of health infrastructures and widen access to social coverage, help further develop road, port and airport transport thereby increasing mobility among regions and with the world, while helping accelerate the dynamics of advanced regionalization.
The results over that period show that the Bank helped secure access to drinking water for five million inhabitants and extended health insurance coverage from 62% in 2017 to 100% in 2023. More broadly, this vision consolidated the country’s industrial base by supporting the development of small and medium-sized enterprises, particularly in export. Finally, by developing renewable energies, the Bank has helped increase the country’s solar generation capacity, guaranteeing the security of the Kingdom’s energy supply.
Morocco is a founding member of the African Development Bank, which has invested since 1978, over 12 billion euros in nearly 190 projects. Its active portfolio includes 40 operations with 3.5 billion euros in the health, water, agriculture, transport, energy and financial sectors.
Distributed by African Media Agency on behalf of African Development Bank
