HIBAPRESS
Fouad YAZOUGH, Ambassador and Director General of International Political Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccan Expatriates, affirmed on Saturday in Cairo that Morocco, under the leadership of King Mohammed VI, has made strengthening cooperation relations with African countries a driver for its African action.
Yazough said, in a speech before the Second Ministerial Conference of the Russian-African Partnership Forum, "The Kingdom of Morocco has enshrined in its constitution a commitment to strengthen cooperation relations with African peoples and countries, especially with the countries of the Sahel and sub-Saharan Africa. It is not surprising that this philosophy is the engine of Morocco's African action under the wise leadership of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, may God protect him."
The ambassador continued that "belief in Africa – in the eyes of Morocco – is associated with joint development, based on cooperation, economic integration, and effective solidarity within the continent."
He pointed out that the Kingdom of Morocco has paid special attention to concrete and structured cooperation projects with its African brothers, highlighting the increase in partnerships in the fields of human development such as health, housing, access to drinking water, electricity, and food security, in parallel with working in productive sectors that will generate development and job opportunities, adding that Morocco has, thanks to this commitment, taken the place of the first African investor in the West African region and the second on the continent.
In addition to bilateral cooperation, Yazough points out, Morocco aspires to rich and diverse trilateral cooperation, which is the framework in which it envisions partnership with the Russian Federation, in which everyone wins, stressing that this forum embodies, in its form that combines being a platform for South-South political dialogue and a Russian-African cooperation mechanism, this trend in the best way.
After highlighting that the Russian-African partnership entails promising development qualifications, and the witness to that is the rush of trade and economic relations, Yazough reviewed the prospects for deepening trilateral cooperation, based on Morocco's experience and initiatives.
Thus, in the field of agriculture and food security, he stressed that ambitious cooperation, which combines Russian expertise in grain production, logistics and fertilizers with Moroccan experience in climate-smart agriculture and irrigation, would revolutionize the field of continental food security.
He continued that in the field of energy security, access to affordable and sustainable energy is the basis of any industrialization, stressing that the Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline project, the leading royal initiative, is a structural project that goes beyond the purely energy dimension to become a strong lever for regional integration and economic development.
He added, in this regard, that it is possible to explore aspects of integration with Russian expertise in the field, expressing Morocco's readiness, by virtue of its leadership in renewable energies, to share its experience.
In the field of connectivity and integrated infrastructure, Yazough says, the development of intra-African trade is a key to prosperity, and the Atlantic Initiative, launched by King Mohammed VI, aims to establish an institutional framework that includes several countries bordering the Atlantic Ocean, with a view to strengthening security, stability, and common prosperity, noting that, in the same context, the royal initiative to enable the Sahel countries to access the Atlantic aims to break the isolation of West Africa through the mobilization of Moroccan field, road, and railway infrastructure, where these projects open up wide cooperation prospects in the fields of transport, logistics, and major works.
He noted that development projects remain dependent on the existence of a safe and stable environment, as terrorist threats, transnational organized crime, and violent extremism require collective mobilization and enhanced coordination, highlighting in this regard that Morocco, which has accumulated considerable experience in combating terrorism and preventive security, is ready to contribute within the framework of trilateral cooperation that respects the sovereignty of countries and their territorial integrity in strengthening the capacities of African countries.
As for human capital and innovation, with the training of more than 32,000 African students in Russia, Mr. Yazough stresses, educational cooperation constitutes a solid ground that should be consolidated and expanded to include advanced scientific and technological fields, considering that trilateral cooperation between Russia, Africa and Morocco in the fields of technical training, research and development, and digital innovation would accelerate the pace of building a knowledge economy in the African continent.
He concluded that Morocco's participation in this forum stems from a firm conviction that has always guided Morocco's African action, under the wise leadership of King Mohammed VI, which is that the African continent is an indispensable number in contemporary geopolitical equations, pointing out that it is a strong continent with its diversity and determined to carve its destiny with the hands of its people.
The Moroccan delegation at this conference consisted, in addition to Yazough, of Abdullah Boutdgart, Director of African Affairs at the Ministry.
