Morocco Absent As World Bank Initiative Targets Global Water Crisis

Casablanca – The World Bank Group has launched a new global initiative aimed at tackling one of the planet’s most persistent crises. Called Water Forward, the program is designed to help countries strengthen water security, improve infrastructure, and better manage increasingly unpredictable supplies.

Announced last Wednesday, the initiative comes with an ambitious target. The World Bank says it wants to help deliver water security for one billion people. At its core are so-called “Water Compacts,” national-level plans that countries commit to, combining policy reforms, financing, and long-term investment strategies.

So far, 14 countries have signed on to these compacts. The list includes Albania, Angola, Bolivia, Cambodia, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Jamaica, Jordan, Kenya, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

While Morocco does not appear among them, the country has long been considered among the most water-stressed globally, a reality documented in multiple reports in recent years. A 2023 analysis by the World Bank, in its Morocco Climate and Development Report, found that the country’s renewable water availability has fallen to around 620 cubic meters per person annually, placing it in a situation of structural water stress, close to the absolute scarcity threshold

At first glance, 2026 might seem to tell a different story. Heavy rains over the past months have significantly replenished dam levels across the country. Reservoirs that had been worryingly low are now in a more comfortable range, offering temporary relief to farmers and urban supply systems.

But water experts tend to be cautious about reading too much into a single good season. Rainfall in Morocco has become increasingly erratic. One wet year does not cancel out years of drought, nor does it erase structural pressure on water resources.

Whether Morocco becomes part of the next wave remains to be seen. But given the stakes, and the country’s ongoing struggle to balance supply and demand, it would be a logical place for the program to land next.

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