By offering maritime entry to Sahelian international locations, Morocco is providing a regional and continental mannequin for stability and shared prosperity.
The Atlantic Initiative, launched by King Mohammed VI of Morocco, is starting to reshape the financial and geostrategic panorama of Africa. This undertaking goals to supply a maritime outlet for Sahelian international locations; It stimulates African financial integration by strengthening cooperation between international locations within the South, and between international locations within the North and South, on the idea of a good and symmetrical partnership. Along with this initiative, Morocco can also be engaged on the launch of the Gasoline Pipeline with Nigeria (GAA), a strategic undertaking that isn’t separate from the Atlantic Initiative, however reasonably integrates it. On this context, the AfCFTA (African Continental Free Commerce Space) is also a lever for industrialisation and financial diversification. The purpose is to make use of know-how and experience for the advantage of the continent.
These dynamics are bringing about multidimensional transformations that essentially require financial, academic, safety, logistical and infrastructure methods, in addition to revolutionary industrial approaches in a context marked by local weather change. How can we transfer from ‘caravan routes’ to ‘Atlantic highways’ whereas integrating sustainable improvement targets?On a cultural stage, African id can function a unifying pressure between these international locations to develop a way of belonging. With this in thoughts, the Institute of African Identification is taking motion to advertise energetic possession and engagement among the many African populations involved, notably younger folks. These embody the promotion of African arts and cultures (artwork, music, dance, and so on.).
South-oriented investmentIn financial and entrepreneurial phrases, Morocco’s southern provinces are actually rising as a serious attraction for worldwide buyers. The rising variety of visits by enterprise delegations is testimony to this rising curiosity. With trendy infrastructure and powerful political will, these provinces supply a dynamic and promising financial surroundings. They purpose to change into the ‘African California’.
Italians, Individuals, British and French buyers are displaying a robust need to speculate there, banking on pure assets, geostrategic positioning and the prospects supplied by the New Improvement Mannequin launched by the Kingdom.
As for the USA, the flagship undertaking of Soluna Applied sciences, which is mobilising $2.5 billion for a 900 MW wind farm to energy information centres, illustrates the American need to make the Moroccan Sahara a continental-scale expertise hub. As well as, the Dakhla-Oued Eddahab Regional Council and American teams equivalent to Danforth Traders and SEC Newgate US have signed agreements to help sustainable infrastructure and social tasks.
On the French aspect, the Director Basic of the AFD (French Improvement Company), Rémy Rioux, introduced in June 2025 in Laâyoune investments of round €150 million within the southern provinces. For its half, TotalEnergies has signed an settlement to supply inexperienced hydrogen in Guelmim-Oued Noun, drawing on a mixed capability of 1 gigawatt of photo voltaic and wind vitality, primarily for export to Europe.
As well as, the Dakhla-Casablanca energy line, supported by AFD and Proparco, embodies this structural cooperation aimed toward strengthening North-South vitality interconnection, stimulating the nation’s industrial integration.
This enhance in international funding within the southern provinces highlights a convergence of financial and geopolitical pursuits and confirms the will to make the Moroccan Sahara an space of stability, innovation and shared prosperity.
Along with this exterior dynamic, there are endogenous forces supported and promoted by King Mohammed VI by the New Improvement Mannequin for the Southern Provinces (NMDPS), which relies on decentralised governance during which native populations actively take part in improvement. The tempo of tasks launched in 2015 has remained regular. Ten years after the launch of the New Improvement Mannequin, the preliminary funds has been re-evaluated at €8.3 billion.
College exchangesAs a part of the AfCFTA dynamic, the southern provinces are taking part in a rising function within the structuring of trans-Saharan logistics corridors, which is able to profit the entire of West Africa and the Sahel international locations.
On the tutorial stage, mobility and coaching programmes for younger Africans are being applied to advertise ‘Made in and with Africa’ and thus contribute to the emergence of an built-in and united Atlantic-Sahelian regional area. Since 2023, sixty younger African researchers have benefited from mobility grants obtained by the ‘doctoral incubator’ programme supplied by the Institut de l’Africanité. As a catalyst for African expertise and innovation, younger African entrepreneurs have additionally been in a position to profit from monetary help by the ‘Passerelle d’Innovation’ programme to undertake an educational journey to Morocco and profit from a whole immersion in an area tutorial and analysis ecosystem.
The transformations underway transcend easy bilateral logic. They’re shaping a brand new regional and continental mannequin, during which the southern provinces of Morocco have gotten a strategic, financial and geopolitical hub, a catalyst for cooperation, integration and sustainable improvement.
The problem now’s to provide them even better continental and worldwide visibility. The purpose is to change into a extremely strategic world hub and a stable vitality, entrepreneurial and industrial spine for West Africa and the Sahel.
