Rabat – The Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) campus in Laayoune hosted on Sunday the Symposium on the 60th Anniversary of the Morocco-Senegal Establishment Convention, celebrating six decades of diplomatic and academic partnership between the two countries.
Organized in collaboration with the Timbuktu Institute, African Center for Peace Studies, the event brought together more than 200 participants from both countries, including researchers, policymakers, and institutional representatives.
The symposium also coincided with the 50th anniversary of the Green March, two milestones symbolizing a shared vision of African unity, solidarity, and development.
From political partnership to a space of knowledge and innovation
The symposium’s three thematic panels explored the evolution of Morocco-Senegal cooperation, the strategic value of academic mobility, and the role of entrepreneurship and food sovereignty in shaping Africa’s future.
Speakers noted that the relationship between the two countries has matured beyond political and diplomatic ties, becoming a driver of knowledge creation and technological innovation that resonates across the continent.
The discussions reaffirmed the depth and adaptability of a partnership that continues to evolve in response to Africa’s contemporary challenges. Participants pointed to research collaboration, higher education, and sustainable entrepreneurship as the new pillars of Morocco-Senegal cooperation.
The Laayoune declaration: a framework for pan-african cooperation
The event concluded with the adoption of the Laayoune Declaration, a roadmap aiming to transform Morocco-Senegal relations into a model for Pan-African cooperation founded on research, innovation, and shared responsibility.
The declaration calls for expanding joint academic programs, establishing common research structures, and launching collaborative projects in areas such as food security, renewable energy, and sustainable growth.
The declaration also reaffirms the significance of Morocco’s southern provinces as a crossroads between the Maghreb and Sub-Saharan Africa. By choosing Laayoune to host the event, the organizers sought to emphasize the city’s growing importance as a hub for South–South cooperation and intellectual dialogue, symbolizing a new era of African integration built on knowledge and sustainability.
The symposium also situated the Laayoune Declaration within the Royal Atlantic Initiative for the Sahel, announced by King Mohammed VI in 2023 to give landlocked Sahel countries a strategic outlet to the ocean.
Positioning the Atlantic façade as a lever for stability and shared prosperity, the initiative promotes connective infrastructure, from the Dakhla Atlantic Port and logistics corridors to energy interconnections such as the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline, alongside academic mobility, research transfer, and private investment.
In this reading, the Rabat-Dakar axis is not only bilateral; it functions as an open platform linking the Maghreb and the Sahel to Atlantic value chains, with Laayoune positioned as a staging ground for projects in food security, renewable energy, and human capital that can turn continental ambitions into implementable programs.
Building an Africa that thinks and acts for itself
Khalid Baddou, Director of Institutional Affairs at UM6P, described the gathering as “a celebration of a diplomatic history but above all of a shared continental ambition, to restore meaning to endogenous development, to the knowledge economy, and to the productive dignity of African societies.”
Bakary Sambe, President of the Timbuktu Institute, shared a similar vision, stating that “this celebration is not merely a tribute to the past. It enshrines a vision for the future, an Africa that thinks, acts, and produces based on its own knowledge and models.”
The Laayoune Declaration sets the foundation for transforming the Rabat-Dakar axis into a model of sustainable cooperation through education, research, and innovation.
It envisions the establishment of an Atlantic Axis Universities and Research Network, a joint Morocco-Senegal Observatory on food security and sustainable development, and a Chair in Atlantic Studies dedicated to analyzing Africa’s geopolitical and economic transformations.
The declaration also promotes cross-border entrepreneurship, encouraging the creation of binational startups in agritech, food processing, and green energy, supported by a joint seed funding mechanism.
A three-year action plan (2026–2028) will oversee the implementation of these initiatives, alongside a multilingual digital platform to facilitate coordination and dissemination of research.
As the symposium drew to a close, participants agreed that the future of Morocco-Senegal cooperation lies in its capacity to generate meaning and knowledge.
The partnership is rooted in shared history and cultural affinity, they argued, concluding that it now aspires to shape an Africa capable of defining its own development path: a continent that learns, innovates, and acts from within.
