Highlights

Accelerating the development of the blue economy in Morocco: Signing of the Technical Assistance Grant

21/02/2023
Accelerating the development of the blue economy in Morocco: Signing of the Technical Assistance Grant

The Ministry of Economy and Finance and the World Bank have jointly signed a 5 million dollars grant agreement to accelerate the development of the blue economy in Morocco.

Mr. Fouzi LEKJAA, Minister Delegate in charge of the budget and Mr. Jesko Hentschel, Country Director of the World Bank for the Maghreb and Malta signed, Tuesday, February 21st 2023, the grant agreement for technical assistance of 5 million dollars. This technical assistance follows the negotiations of the loan agreement of 350 million dollars signed on June 9th 2022, relating to the program for the results of the blue economy (PPR BE).

The technical assistance project: "Accelerating the development of the Blue Economy in the Kingdom of Morocco" was prepared jointly by the services of the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) and those of the World Bank (WB). It aims to inform on the development of the Blue Economy and integrate climate actions in coastal tourism and fisheries management in the targeted areas. The project focuses on three components: developing collaborative governance for the Blue Economy, building resilience and integrated planning and project management.

In this context and in coordination with the Program Management Unit (PMU) located within the MEF, certain implementing entities will benefit from this technical assistance.

The Directorate of Ports and Maritime Public Domain will work for the development of a methodology specific to Morocco for the evaluation of satellite images to monitor the change of the coastline.

As part of the promotion of sustainable tourism, SMIT (Moroccan Tourism Investment) will benefit from training to support the labeling of tourism activities and the establishment of quality standards for tourism products and services in the Souss Massa region.

To address climate change, the Department of Marine Fisheries (DPM) will need to develop management plans for marine protected areas (MPAs) through the application of the Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) approach.

Collaborative governance is the main institutional innovation of the blue economy program in Morocco.