World Water Forum: Morocco Pursuing Efforts to Establish Decentralized Water Management by Basin – Minister

Dakar – Morocco is pursuing its efforts aimed at the establishment of decentralized water management by basin, said Nizar Baraka, Minister of Equipment and Water, on Thursday at the opening of the 9th World Water Forum’s high-level political segment dedicated to basins.

“Morocco continues to pursue its efforts to implement decentralized water management at the basin level, in order to ensure the conditions for a beneficial use of this vital resource to meet the aspirations of development at national, regional and local levels,” said the Minister.

Speaking on behalf of the International Network of Basin Organizations (INBO), which he chairs, Baraka pointed out that the hydraulic basin is the most suitable natural space for understanding and solving water resource management problems and for achieving effective regional solidarity between the users concerned by a common water resource.

The creation of the Water Basin Agencies more than twenty years ago, he added, reflects a proactive policy of decentralization, involving all water stakeholders at the level of the water basin.

These institutions ensure the development, management and protection of water resources and public water within the framework of regulatory provisions established by the laws in force, he further noted.

The Minister has, in this sense, stressed that the promulgation of the newly approved Law 36-15 has further strengthened the role of the Water Basin Agencies and the decentralized and concerted management of water.

According to him, this consolidation came through the establishment of instruments for user participation in the management with the creation of Basin Councils and provincial and prefectural committees of water.

This “greatly important” day will, therefore, identify opportunities to be seized to further strengthen planning and management between users at the basin level and enrich the “Dakar Action Plan for the basins” which will be adopted today.

Basin organizations are multi-stakeholder platforms and places for dialogue and exchange between users and water stakeholders, both institutional and private, to solve concrete problems of water resources management, for the benefit of populations, he explained.