Water Management Archives | Morocco Telegraph

Israel announces a new investment in aquaculture in Morocco’s Sahara

MT — Fri, 24 Mar 2023 20:14:04 +0000

The Sahara region of Morocco has lately seen the start of an aquaculture project by an Israeli enterprise, according to Ofir Akunis, the minister of innovation, science, and technology.

The Israeli official continued: “These initiatives and others in many spheres of cooperation made feasible owing to the Historic agreements and peace treaties negotiated between Israel and four Arab countries,” during the 2023 United Nations Water Conference in New York.

Israeli tabloids stated that Nizar Baraka, the minister of equipment and water, met Akunis on Wednesday in New York.

According to the same sources, the two representatives spoke before the 2023 United Nations Water Conference.

The same sources state that the two ministers talked about deepening bilateral ties between their nations in the area of water management during this encounter.

Morocco holds off on substantial moves in its relations with Israel until Tel Aviv makes its position on the Western Sahara known.

Although if collaboration in many areas is growing, the newly normalized partner countries still need to communicate more in the fields of politics and foreign policy.

This summit takes place amid rising tensions between Israel and other Arab nations, including the Kingdom, as a result of remarks made by Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who claimed that “there is no Palestinian people.”

The comment was labeled as “inappropriate and reckless” by both Paris and Washington.

Morocco has acknowledged that it is concerned about several statements made by Israeli government officials that were provocative against Arab nations and the rights of the Palestinian people.

Nasser Bourita, Morocco’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, declared that “Morocco always rejects every reckless behavior, and every act that could be inflammatory or have a negative effect,” on the eve of his meeting with the Burkina Faso Foreign Minister.

Bourita emphasized that Morocco, whose King Mohammed VI serves as the Quds Committee’s chairman, has consistently emphasized that negotiations are the only way to bring about a permanent resolution to the Palestinian problem, within the framework of respecting the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to establish their state within the boundaries of 1967 and to have East Jerusalem as their capital that coexists with Israel.

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Water Management: President of the UN GA praises Morocco’s “very visionary” policies

MT — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 17:07:08 +0000

United Nations (New York) – The president of the United Nations General Assembly Csaba Kőrösi commended, in New York, the “very visionary” policies adopted at the highest level of the state in Morocco for a sustainable water management.

Krösi stated in an interview with, MAP’s 24-hour news channel, on the occasion of the United Nations 2023 Water Conference, which will take place from March 22–24 at the headquarters of the international organization, “I would like to come into Morocco for its very visionary policies” that rely on water conservation and storage.

According to him, “water storage is one of the crucial parts in reforming our water and climate policies.” He also said that there are many different methods to store this essential resource, such as by constructing reservoirs to increase the amount of water in the environment or in aquifers.

The president of the UN General Assembly noted that this plan, which calls for rationalizing water usage and building more dams, “would substantially benefit” Morocco’s economic and social growth and emphasized that the country has “a very intelligent water policy.”

Nizar Baraka, the Minister of Equipment and Water, will be in charge of a sizable delegation for Morocco at the UN conference on water, which is being organized for the first time in more than 50 years. The Kingdom wants to use this opportunity to reaffirm its unwavering commitment to the cause and to implore the international community to give the water issue more attention as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is put into action.

In the context of a solidary and active collaboration, Morocco also intends to reinforce its links with its partners and declare its desire to share the experiences and best practices it has amassed in the water sector.

The President of UN GA stated that the countries of the continent will have the chance to propose “their own strategies with their own visions” on how to integrate water and climate policies in response to the difficulties of this international conference for Africa, which is battling the effects of climate change and a string of droughts and floods.

He stated that African nations should also consider how to better the education system, match money with projects, and deepen collaboration with foreign partners in water management.

The UN representative demanded the development of a worldwide voter information system and the training of additional specialists, thinking that doing so would help developing nations like Africa. Africa has to increase its pool of professionals, he declared.

He also wished for the summit to be a “true, historic watershed event,” like the one that resulted in the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015.

The in-depth mid-term evaluation of the accomplishment of the objectives of the Decade for Action on Water 2018-2028, which was announced by the UN GA in December 2016, will be the focus of the UN Water Conference 2023, which will include heads of state and government, ministers, and stakeholders.

Plenary sessions, a general debate, high-level interactive conversations on the topic of water in relation to health, development, climate, resilience, environment, and international cooperation, side events, and exhibitions are all on the agenda for this event.

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Morocco: Water Management Under Worrying Indicators

Morocco Telegraph — Mon, 22 Mar 2021 20:55:38 +0000

The government is armed with the National Program for Drinking Water Supply and Irrigation 2020-2027, and the National Water Plan 2020-2050.

Today, March 22nd, is the World Water Day, and it is an occasion to find out how Morocco is prepared to face the challenges related to water in light of the climate and water context of our country, which has been characterized in recent years by droughts that brought the inhabitants of a number of regions to protest, raising therefore the issue of urgent measures to solve water problems in some regions, such as Zagora, which experienced unprecedented social tensions due to limited water resources.

The effects of drought and high demand are among the factors that impose pre-planning for water resource development strategies, while the state began to complete the first studies for resource planning since 1970, and this file is still on the government’s table today under the name of “managing scarcity” in order to manage drinking and irrigation water, and preserving it for the benefit of future generations.

The national priority program for potable water supplies costs 115 billion dirhams; 61 billion dirhams to develop the water supply, 25.1 billion dirhams to manage demand and water valuation, in addition to 26.9 billion dirhams to strengthen the supply of drinking water in rural areas, and 2.3 billion dirhams to the reuse of wastewater, then 50 million dirhams for communication and awareness.

Governmental measures related to water, announced on the occasion of the World Water Day, which falls on March 22 of each year, aim to overcome the problem of “water scarcity” in order not to turn into a “crisis”, especially since national and international reports have been sounding the alarm for years, and perhaps the latest of them is when the Moroccan League for Citizenship and Human Rights previously announced that nearly 50% of Moroccans do not have access to drinking water, while half of the schools in rural areas are not equipped with water and sanitation services.

As the World Bank had previously emphasized in a previous report entitled “For a World Free of Poverty”, Morocco has limited reserves of water resources, and the volume of water that it can technically and economically exploit does not exceed 80% of the current available water resources. Moreover, the report stated that all water problems in Morocco are related to managing water resources, noting that the rate of water waste in Morocco is 35% of the available water.

In addition to these worrisome indicators, a report by the Economic, Social and Environmental Council entitled “Governance through the Integrated Management of Water Resources in Morocco” notes that Morocco has, for years, witnessed an exacerbation of pressure on water resources due to the combination of many factors, including uneconomic habits of water consumption, and the patterns followed today in the exploitation of water resources, which have sometimes become aggressive and harmful due to the technological steps achieved, and then an uncontrolled increase in the urban population, which increases the complexity of the chains of collection and emptying of household and similar waste which it is often disposed of in random dumps or streams.

According to the Council’s report dating back to the year 2014, the sustainability of water resources has become under real danger, due to human and economic productive activities, pumping operations and overexploitation of some non-renewable water beds, and human activities alone lead to the extraction of more than 900 million cubic meters of water annually from non-renewable stocks in the country’s water beds.

The aforementioned indicators contributed to the collapse of the Moroccan per capita share of water in a “dramatic” manner during the past 20 years, after it decreased from 2,500 cubic meters per year in the 1980s to 1,010 cubic meters in 2000, then deteriorated further, reaching 720 meters in 2013, and is expected to decrease to 500 cubic meters per year by 2030, according to official reports.

In a report submitted to the concerned authorities, the council recommended setting serious goals related to generalizing the water economy in industrial, tourism and household uses, by achieving an additional water mobilization of 6.4 billion cubic meters of water annually, which represents more than 25% of the total water resources in our country, and more than six times the water currently extracted from non-renewable resources, distributed as follows: 31% by reaching the target of treating 400 million cubic meters of water annually from desalination of seawater and removing highly saline water from mineral impurities; 27% by continuing the dam policy, 25% through intensive re-orientation towards concentrated or sprinkler watering, 11% through wastewater reuse and water saving for industrial, tourism and domestic uses, and 6% by improving connectivity and distribution networks.

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