Press release number: IFAD 20/01

Rome, 25 July - A USD 30.2 million project in the Kingdom of Morocco – The ‘Rural Development Project in the Mountain Zones of Al-Haouz Province’ will receive a USD  8 million loan from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). A loan agreement was signed today at the Fund’s Headquarters by His Excellency Mr. Aziz Mekouar, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Morocco to Italy and Mr. John Westley, Vice-President of the Fund.

The project area covers 17 disadvantaged rural communes of Al-Haouz Province, south of Marrakech. Poverty in the area derives from poor socio-economic services and infrastructure and limited income opportunities. The population lives in difficult conditions and face a series of constraints that impede their development, i.e. lack of land in the high valleys; low productivity of sylvo-pastoral ecosystems; recurrent drought; loss of land and irrigation structures; poor conditions for optimizing the use of water resources.

The target group will include the poorest individuals among the 111 773 inhabitants of the project area. The project activities would directly benefit some 210 villages distributed over the 17 communes, representing a total population of 50 000 rural men and women. In particular, the project will reach some 5 400 small farms representing a population of 32 000 and a cropped land of 14 000 ha. In addition, approximately 3 000 households would benefit from actions for improvement of pastoral and sylvo-pastoral resources, animals health and soil and water conservation. Activities concerning training and assistance to establish micro-projects would benefit approximately 2 000 women, 1 000 young girls and about 1 000 young men.

The project would be implemented over a period of six years and activities would be grouped into two main categories: (i) capacity building and support to participatory programming of local development programmes through grassroots organizations and provincial and local public administration; (ii) creating socio-economic and productive assets and access to them by beneficiaries. These include: rehabilitation of small-scale irrigation, land improvement through derocking, soil and water conservation combining physical and biological measures, rehabilitation of existing rural roads and water points and creation of new ones, pastoral improvement in collectively-owned and parastatal forest land, and support to rural microfinance and microenterprises development to add value to agricultural products through processing and labelling. The promotion of ecotourism as an off-farm income generating activity would be included given the biodiversity in the project area.

The Government of Morocco attaches great importance to reducing social disparities between rural and urban areas and combating poverty. This project has been designed as a pilot intervention for the development of mountain areas with a high incidence of poverty. The approach will center on three fundamental principles: consultation, participation and partnership. It is expected that it would contribute to the definition of a long-term strategy for the development of mountain zones in Morocco.

With this programme, IFAD will have financed seven projects in the Kingdom of Morocco, for a total loan amount of about USD 124 million.

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IFAD is a specialised agency of the United Nations with the specific mandate of combating hunger and poverty in the most disadvantaged regions of the world. Since 1978 IFAD has financed 584 projects in 114 recipient countries and in the West Bank and Gaza for a total commitment of approximately USD 7.2 billion in loans and grants. Through these projects, about 250 million rural people have had a chance to move out of poverty. IFAD makes the greater part of its resources available to low-income countries on very favourable terms, with up to 40 years for repayment and including a grace period of up to ten years and a service charge of 0.75% per year.