Morocco: New Plan for Natural Hazards Management

Noureddine Boutayeb, Minister Delegate to the Minister of Interior, has revealed that since 2017, the Moroccan government has begun preparing a draft of a national action plan for natural hazards management. This plan is in response to the royal instructions and in accordance with objectives of the international “Sendai Framework” to reduce the risks of natural disasters.

On Thursday, February 4, 2021, the National Action Plan for Natural Disaster Risk Management (2020-2030) was announced, aiming to protect the lives and property of citizens from the effects of natural disasters, and to reduce the risks of such disasters, consolidate the capacity of councils of regions in Morocco as well as the citizens, and to face natural disasters so that sustainable development would continue.

The Minister Delegate further added that the National Action Plan for Natural Disaster Risk Management includes 18 programs within 5 parts related to strengthening the governance of natural risk management, providing information on natural hazards, enhancing flexibility in dealing with  disasters, and preparing for disasters in order to have a rapid return to normal life, reinforcement of scientific research, international cooperation, and provide human competencies in managing natural hazards.

According to Boutayeb, the action plan is based on 4 basic pillars, which are the involvement of all collaborators, both in central and local level, diversification of funding sources for projects related to the prevention of natural hazards, the encouragement of scientific research in the field of prevention of natural disasters effects, increase forms of international cooperation in this purview .

The government’s official indicated that in order to ensure the optimal application of the various programs of the national plan, a number of related projects have been launched to assure effective care of the natural hazards that threaten Morocco, such as floods, soil erosion, earthquakes , etc. Moreover, the government has put in place a monitoring and evaluation system that aims to control the steps of management and implementation of the national plan programs as well as evaluating the degree of its effectiveness through a set of indicators that have been carefully defined according to international standards.