MOROCCO – World Bank has pledged US$180 million support to enhance irrigation in Morocco in the face of drought and strengthen water management in the country’s agricultural sector.

The pledge follows the presentation of the Resilience and Sustainability of Irrigation Water (REDI) project in January 2022.

The funds will be channelled towards implementation of the Resilience and Sustainability of Irrigation Water (REDI) project.

According to the United Nations (UN), Morocco is already considered to be under water stress with only 500 m3 of freshwater per capita per year, compared to 2,500 m3 in 1960, and the situation is expected to worsen.

The Moroccan Ministry of Agriculture, Maritime Fisheries, Rural Development, and Water and Forests, acting as the implementors of the project, plans to strengthen water governance in the project’s beneficiary regions.

Within this framework, REDI will support the creation of a pilot platform for tradable water allocation that will cover 98,000 hectares belonging to 20,000 farmers in the Tadla perimeter, a region located in central Morocco.

It will support the implementation of the Chtouka groundwater contract in the Casablanca-Settat region to improve sustainable groundwater management.

To strengthen water governance, the project also plans to design, develop and implement digital water management and Agri-informatics tools.

The project will ensure creation of two observatories for monitoring and evaluating the impacts of modernization at the plot and off-plot levels, one at the Tadla perimeter and the other at the Office régional de mise en valeur agricole (ORMVA) in Morocco.

The second component of the initiative is dedicated to the construction and modernization of irrigation systems.

In the Talda region, the REDI project will build new pressurized irrigation networks to replace the existing open ones.

A water conveyance canal in the Talda area will also be upgraded. In Chtouka, the project will allow the installation of water meters on 9,000 boreholes for better management of the water table.

In the Souss-Massa region, the Moroccan government plans to renovate the main pumping station (SP1), rehabilitate the main canal, renovate the distribution networks and install irrigation hydrants in areas not yet equipped.

The government hopes to improve the irrigation of a total area of over 18,000 hectares. The third component of the Irrigation Water Resilience and Sustainability Project aims to improve access to advisory services and plot-based or drip irrigation technologies.