he Governing Board of the OPEC Fund for International Development, meeting on September 16 in Vienna, approved US$150 million toward the financing of a major new dam in Morocco. The institution describes a structure meant to strengthen the country’s water security and climate resilience by reducing flood risk and supporting sustainable agriculture. It is the largest sum granted to any single country in the session: of the US$645 million committed since the previous meeting across fourteen partner countries, US$435 million goes to public-sector projects and US$210 million to private-sector operations, from the drinking-water network of the Argentine provinces of Santa Fe and Cordoba to the expansion of the Bumbuna hydroelectric station in Sierra Leone.
The Fund, created in 1976 by the members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to finance development beyond their own borders, has become in Morocco a lender for water as much as for roads. Its president, Abdulhamid Alkhalifa, gathers all of these commitments under a single formula, that of the foundations of sustainable development: reliable water and energy, resilient infrastructure, effective economic institutions and access to finance. The release names neither the structure nor its capacity, and the kingdom has yet to publish the corresponding agreement on its own account. One more dam, then, in a country that has made the dam the central instrument of its water policy since the nineteen sixties: this one will be built under the regime of repeated droughts that emptied the reservoirs and reminded everyone what a drawdown line is for.
Photo: Bertrand SOUBEYRAND, CC BY-SA 4.0.
OPEC Fund for International Development - OPEC Fund approves US$645 million for water security, resilient transport and economic growth
AGBI - Opec Fund allocates $200m for Oman and Morocco projects
