Morocco Has Made ‘Significant Progress’ in Achieving SDGs (UNDP Representative)

Casablanca – Morocco has made significant progress in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), said Thursday in Casablanca, deputy director of the Istanbul International Center for Private Sector in Development (IICPSD), one of the six global policy centers of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Gülçin Salıngan.

“The Kingdom of Morocco has made significant progress in achieving global goals, including improving the living conditions of the population, facilitating access to basic services and developing infrastructure,” said Salıngan, at a conference held under the theme “Impact investing for SDGs: a new chapter for participatory finance”.

Environmental sustainability and renewable energies, she said, are major pillars of Morocco’s sustainable development strategy, praising the Kingdom’s ambitious goal of increasing the share of renewable energies to 52% by 2030.

Salıngan also stressed that the implementation of the various strategies and projects undertaken by Morocco require sources of financing beyond public resources, noting, in this sense, that the investing impact can really help to achieve these priority objectives by attracting private sector investment.

She also highlighted Morocco’s “significant experience” with Green Bonds, noting that the Kingdom “is in a position to be a model for the rest of African countries with regard to these innovative financing instruments”.

For his part, secretary general of the Environment Department at the ministry of Energy, Mining and Sustainable Development, Mohamed Benyahia, said that sustainable development issues are in the heart of government policies, adding that Morocco has been making a sustained effort for several years now, both in terms of tax reform and the establishment of new instruments for financing SDGs.

In this regard, he recalled that the Kingdom has set up a national commission for sustainable development responsible, inter alia, for monitoring the implementation of the SDGs.