Meeting with Her Excellency Leila Benali, Minister of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development of the Kingdom of Morocco

Rabat - FAO Director-General QU Dongyu met today in Rabat with Her Excellency Leila Benali, Minister of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development of the Kingdom of Moroccoon the margins of the 33rd Session of the FAO Regional Conference for Africa (ARC33).

The Minister welcomed the Director-General to Rabat and expressed her appreciation for the good cooperation that exists between FAO and Morocco.

The Director-General thanked the Minister for the warm welcome and hospitality extended to him, the FAO team and to all Members from Africa attending the regional conference. Heindicated that FAO is a strong partner of Morocco, and he looked forward to even strongercooperation on sustainable development, environment, and biodiversity. 

He expressed his desire to see full implementation of the Shamal Sheik Declaration and expressed his appreciation for the vision of His Majesty the King on climate change. He further stated that it was important to look to science for sustainable solutions and diversification of products. He appreciated the leading role played by Morocco in agrifood systems and through South-South Cooperation. He said Morocco’s unique approach to agrifood systems can contribute positively to the work of FAO with other African countries.

The Minister affirmed Morocco’s commitment to work with FAO especially on improving lives of people in rural areas. She stated that Morocco is water stressed and they are working tirelesslyto find solutions, and that increased cooperation to grow a circular economy through biodiversity projects was needed. The Minister stated that there were a lot of opportunities to monetize waste to the benefit of poorer and rural areas and looked forward to collaboration with FAO on this initiative.

The Minister further stated that they looked forward to working more on adaptation and on co-financing schemes and other partnerships which could monetize and improve the human development index in Morocco. She also referred to sustainable solutions for plastic reductionand invited FAO to join Morocco as advocacy partner for sustainable use of plastic and reduce its hazardous use. 

The Director-General informed the Minister that the reduction and proper use of plastic was an important area of work for FAO, and he looked forward to working jointly with Morocco on this important matter. Finally, he also agreed that compost waste could be monetized by rural communities, but that safety should always remain a priority.