Rabat – A new grant program, Fonds Charaka, will provide funding to improve technical and vocational education in Morocco. Administered by US public development agency the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the program plans on awarding more than USD 90 million for new projects.
Fonds Charaka aims to address the discrepancy between private sector needs and educational opportunities. The program will bolster the skills of Morocco’s workforce by working with the private sector to improve the quality and relevance of the country’s technical and vocational education.
The funding will help to build new centers and to expand Morocco’s existing professional training facilities that are currently managed by public-private partnerships.
These centers will offer private-sector driven training in order to help Moroccans fill workforce opportunities. The MCC hopes that this project will be a “model for engagement with the private sector” and will “address both the supply and demand side of the labor market.”
The “Charaka” fund is one part of the larger project “Education and Training for Employability,” which focuses on Secondary Education Activity and Workforce Development Activity. In both these components of the project, the Millennium Challenge Corporation will address issues of gender inequality in Morocco.
According to the MCC project website, “a concerted effort will be made to ensure that the project results in equitable outcomes for both girls and boys and reduces social, gender and regional inequalities.”
To determine which projects will be funded, the Millennium Challenge Account-Morocco (MCA – Morocco) launched a call for proposals on May 29. An official launch event will also be hosted on June 14 in Casablanca. The call for proposals will close on September 15.
