Blue Economy: Morocco, ‘Invested Actor’ (World Bank)

Casablanca – Morocco is positioned as “an invested actor” in the global and regional agendas that can contribute to the development of a sustainable and inclusive Blue Economy (BE), said the World Bank (WB).

It is in this sense that Morocco has become aware of the importance of the growth relay offered by the BE by adopting it as one of the main pillars of its New Development Model (NMD), stressed the WB in a report entitled “Blue Economy Development Program, Environmental and Social Systems Assessment (ESES)”.

According to the WB, the implementation of the planning of the BE requires a specific mobilization approach of the existing coordination frameworks at the central and regional levels.

It added that this planning will find a catalyst in the establishment of “coastal clusters”, according to the approach proposed by the NMD.

Thus, the full mobilization of the potential of the BE requires the acceleration of the implementation of development plans for coastal regions of Morocco. These will serve as a lever for the development of “coastal clusters” to attract investment oriented towards wealth-creating activities and concerned with the preservation of the coastline.

Based on the NMD, added the WB, the government intends to develop a national program for the BE via an approach defined around all activities contributing to the protection and enhancement of marine and coastal resources with three central objectives, namely economic development and job creation at the territorial level, food security of the country and the protection and enhancement of environmental resources.

As a flexible and versatile tool available to public or private actors who already have their own institutional frameworks, the “coastal clusters” have the potential to support virtually any form of cooperation between all BE actors wishing to promote innovation (public or private organizations, sectoral or cross-sectoral actors, research organizations, NGOs, etc.).

In order to support the development of the national BE program, the government of Morocco has decided to establish a partnership with the World Bank through the preparation of a Program for Results, recalled the WB.

The objective of this program is to strengthen the institutional and financial framework of Morocco for the sustainable development of coastal and marine areas.