Marrakech – Morocco and NATO are moving to extend their military cooperation into the training of African armed forces, according to a report published Thursday by Africa Intelligence. The plan runs through the Defence Education Enhancement Programme (DEEP), a NATO-led framework that Rabat joined in 2025.
Under the initiative, the Royal Armed Forces (FAR), led by General Mohammed Berrid, and NATO are expected to hold a DEEP session in the kingdom this year or by early 2027. The program will center mainly on non-commissioned officer (NCO) capabilities. Morocco’s ambassador to NATO, Ahmed Réda Chami, has led the negotiations.
NATO’s own account points in the same direction. Its Secretary General Annual Report for 2025, released in late March 2026 under Secretary General Mark Rutte, listed Morocco among its DEEP highlights, noting that Rabat “started trilateral cooperation between NATO, Morocco and third nations in Africa” to develop their non-commissioned officers.
The move builds on an established record. Morocco has co-organized the African Lion exercise with Washington since 2004. Each year the country hosts the drill, jointly overseen by the FAR and AFRICOM, the United States Africa Command. The exercise gathers about 40 countries, most of them African, alongside other NATO and European Union members.
A parallel track with Washington
A parallel track with the United States is advancing at the same time. On July 13, the FAR and AFRICOM signed a memorandum of understanding at the command’s headquarters to establish the Africa Multidomain Training and Experimentation Center (AMTEC). The center is to be built in Tan-Tan by 2030 and will combine three elements: a Multidomain Training Area, a Drone Academy, and an Innovation and Experimentation Center.
The Drone Academy will train operators, planners, and instructors from Morocco and African partner nations, with a focus on countering threats in West Africa. Berrid tied the project to the country’s existing capacity, pointing to facilities and personnel that, in his words, ensure “rapid progress from concept to operational reality.”
General Dagvin Anderson, who commands AFRICOM, described AMTEC as a step that will “increase readiness and advance capabilities of both nations.” African Lion 2027 is set to serve as a proof of concept for the center.
The drone element of that partnership is already in motion. During African Lion 2026, held from April 20 to May 8 across Ghana, Morocco, Senegal, and Tunisia, US instructors ran the exercise’s first drone academics class at the Southern Zone Headquarters in Agadir.
The class graduated more than 20 service members from Morocco, Nigeria, Ghana, and the United States, split between an eight-day planner course and a 10-day operator course on small unmanned aircraft systems.
This training push fits a wider pattern of Moroccan defense diplomacy across Africa. Over the past two years, Rabat has concluded military cooperation agreements with several African states, among them Cameroon in March 2025, Côte d’Ivoire in May 2025, Ethiopia in June 2025, and Liberia in October 2025. Most of the deals cover military education and training, joint exercises, scientific research, and military health services.
The African track runs alongside a long-standing partnership with Washington. Morocco has been a Major Non-NATO Ally of the United States since 2004, and the two countries first signed a decade-long defense cooperation roadmap, covering 2020 to 2030, in Rabat on October 2, 2020. They renewed it in April 2026 with a new roadmap extending the partnership through 2036, signed during the 14th session of the Morocco-US Defense Consultative Committee.
What DEEP is, and how Morocco fits in
DEEP itself dates to 2007, when NATO developed it with the Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes.
It supports partner countries in reforming professional military education through two components: curriculum development, or what to teach, and faculty development, or how to teach. A dedicated NCO Working Group handles requests tied to the professionalization of NCO corps.
The program draws on more than 900 experts from roughly 75 institutions across NATO and partner states. In 2025, it delivered 562 events, mobilized 1,624 subject-matter experts, and reached 5,333 partner faculty members.
Morocco’s ties to NATO run deeper than DEEP. The North African country is a member of the Mediterranean Dialogue, a partnership forum launched in December 1994 that Morocco joined in the first group in February 1995. It was also the first Dialogue partner to conclude an individualized partnership program with the Alliance.
Those ties have drawn attention from senior NATO figures. On a visit in October 2024, NATO’s Special Representative for the Southern Neighbourhood, Javier Colomina, called Morocco “a valuable interlocutor for NATO on security issues,” particularly in counter-terrorism.
The country, he noted, “has always contributed significantly to international peace and security” through its role in NATO-led missions, and he framed the relationship as one that “rests on shared values and common challenges.”
That record is concrete. Rabat joined the IFOR/SFOR mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Kosovo Force (KFOR), and it became the second country to host NATO’s REGEX regional exercise, in 2020.
The relationship was on display again in December 2025, when the NATO Defense College’s Senior Course 147 closed its final field study in Rabat.
Alongside stops in Qatar, Türkiye, and Greece, course members were briefed at the Royal Academy, the Military History Directorate, and the Royal College of Higher Military Education (CREMS), examining Morocco’s role within the Alliance’s southern neighborhood.
Read also: NATO Official: Morocco Has ‘Experience From Which We Can Learn’
