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Rabat – The French Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) is reinforcing its long-standing collaboration with Morocco through a high-level visit this week.
IRD’s President and CEO Valérie Verdier, accompanied by Science Director Philippe Charvis, will visit Morocco from February 16-20.
The institute’s officials will meet with key partners in Rabat, Marrakech, and Ben Guerir to enhance research cooperation.
The visit will be an opportunity to launch an international research program on the role of gender in education and the professional sector in Africa, coordinated by the Faculty of Education Sciences at Mohammed V University in Rabat alongside IRD.
The initiative is co-funded by the French Embassy’s Cooperation and Cultural Action Service and the Francophonie University Agency.
The delegation’s agenda includes meetings with Morocco’s Minister of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Innovation, Azzedine El Midaoui, as well as discussions with leaders from the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) and the International University of Rabat (UIR).
A statement from the institute said that this visit builds on IRD’s decades-long partnership with Morocco, and aims to renew framework agreements with several major partners. These include the National Center for Scientific Research and the universities of Mohammed V in Rabat and Cadi Ayyad in Marrakech.
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The IRD-Morocco collaboration began in the 1960s, initially focusing on soil sciences and hydrology before expanding to fields including demography, economics, oceanography, and agronomy, the statement mentioned.
Since the IRD established its Morocco office in the early 2000s, it has facilitated broader partnerships and implemented various multidisciplinary programs.
These joint initiatives address themes that are strategically important for achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) while aligning with Morocco’s priorities under its National Plan for Accelerating the Transformation of the Higher Education, Research and Innovation Ecosystem (PACTE ESRI 2030).
The partnership’s general principles were formalized through an intergovernmental agreement on IRD’s cooperation activities in Morocco, signed in 2008 and regularly renewed since then.
