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King Mohammed VI stands as a champion of intra-African solidarity, matching words with action through the launch of initiatives that aimed at spurring African economic integration, protecting the rights of Africans, promoting religious tolerance and safeguarding peace and stability.
Integration
With more than 50 visits paid to different African countries during 26 years of his reign, King Mohammed VI stands as an African leader advocating continental economic integration as part of a south-south development approach.
“My vision of South-South cooperation is clear and constant: my country shares what it has, without ostentation. Within the framework of a clear-sighted collaboration, Morocco – which is a major economic player in Africa – will become a catalyst for shared expansion,” the king said in his landmark speech marking Morocco’s return to the African Union in 2017.
The Kingdom has continued tireless efforts to promote African integration and development with the announcement of the Atlantic initiatives by King Mohammed VI, namely the Atlantic Africa and the support to landlocked countries in West Africa, to help them access global trade.
For King Mohammed VI, the Atlantic Africa he is championing is meant to be a geostrategic heart and a matrix of innovation and resilience, the aim being to transform the African Atlantic into a lever for unity, an engine for shared prosperity, and a bulwark of stability.
Atlantic Africa must not be seen as a periphery of the global world. Rather, it is a geostrategic heartland, a dynamic interface between continents, a cradle of innovation and resilience.
As to the other initiative, it builds on Morocco’s firm positions in support of African economic and social development by offering its infrastructure and ports to landlocked countries in West Africa, to help them access global trade. Chad, Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso welcomed the initiative.
The initiatives build on a series of Morocco-led projects, notably the Morocco-Nigeria gas pipeline, which has a potential to promote regional energy market integration, while helping 13 African states meet their energy security goals.
Besides, Morocco has subscribed to African free trade area and kept urging an economically integrated Africa.
Morocco is the second largest African investor in Sub-Saharan Africa and the largest African investor in West Africa. A significant portion of Moroccan foreign direct investment (FDI), 62.9%, is directed to sub-Saharan Africa, spanning sectors such as banking (31%), telecommunications (21%), industry (12%), real estate (11%), holdings (10%), other services (9%), trade (5%), and insurance (1%).
Farming
Food security is a major African concern to which Morocco attached utmost importance. The country’s phosphates and fertilizers producer, OCP, has in recent years stepped up investments across the continent to help African countries boost their crop.
Amid a rapid population growth, African powerhouses such as Nigeria and Ethiopia found in Morocco a genuine partner to develop cheap and customized fertilizers. OCP is building two soil nutrient plants in the two countries with a potential to export surplus to neighboring African nations.
OCP has also set up blending units based on soil mapping to provide customized fertilizers across Africa.
As it plans to increase production beyond 20 million tons of fertilizers, OCP has allocated a growing portion of its exports to Africa, and included donations and discounted shipments.
Peace
Promoting African peace efforts is at the heart of Moroccan diplomacy under the leadership of King Mohammed VI.
Morocco currently deploys 1,718 peacekeepers in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, and South Sudan.
Morocco has also played a crucial role in brokering peace deals, such as those between Sierra Leone and Liberia (Casablanca, 2000), facilitating the transition to civilian rule in Guinea following the coup d’état of Daddis Camara (Rabat, 2009), and orchestrating the only inter-Libyan political agreement to date (Skhirat, 2015).
Morocco has also offered its military institutions to foster the capabilities of African armies to counter traits and has backed international efforts aiming to fight violent extremism in the region.
The Kingdom also built on centuries-old ties with West Africa to promote the genuine face of tolerant Islam and suffi traditions, including by setting up the Mohammed VI Foundation of African Oulema to unify and coordinate the efforts of African Muslim scholars to promote peace and tolerance.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Imams continue to graduate from a Rabat-based Imam training institute.
Migration
Morocco was the first African nation to launch a migrant registration campaign benefiting 56,000.
It has urged a paradigm shift in how migration is treated and advocated a breakaway with the security approach that results in violating the rights of migrants.
In 2017, King Mohammed VI was appointed to lead on migration issues within the AU. A report proposed the establishment of an AU Special Envoy on migration and the creation of an African observatory on migration (located in Rabat) to monitor this phenomenon and its root causes.
Migration should be “a lever for co-development, a pillar of South-South Cooperation and an instrument of solidarity,” the King said in a message to the 30th AU summit.
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