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Join on Telegram Rabat – The World Bank has agreed to give Morocco a MAD 700 million loan to create private sector jobs.
The World Bank approved the loan through a six-year-partnership with Morocco, from 2019 to 2024, to help Morocco reduce unemployment.
The unemployment rate in Morocco dropped from 10.2 percent to 9.8 percent between 2017 and 2018, according to Morocco’s High Commission for Planning (HCP).
There were nearly 26 million Moroccans who had reached the legal age to work, 15 years old, in 2018, 46 percent of whom were employed or seeking employment.
The High Commissioner for Planning, Ahmed Lahlimi Alami, said that Morocco is expected to get further into debt, forecasting Morocco’s total debt will be 82.5 percent of GDP in 2019, slightly up from 82.2 percent in 2018.
Morocco hopes to use the loan to promote private sector employment, improve human resources, accelerate digitalization, and improve the quality of education.
Through the partnership, which the World Bank called a “new road map,” Morocco aims to address social and economic integration issues, particularly for youth and people living in rural areas.
The World Bank believes that the goal can only be achieved through a fair distribution of infrastructure and services across all the Moroccan regions, better management of water resources, and increasing Morocco’s capacity to combat climate change.
The World Bank also stressed the need for good governance, gender equality, and greater reliance on digitization.
The three financial institutions of the United Nations, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, and the International Finance Corporation, will work to develop financing sources for Morocco’s development depending on the private sector.
