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- Business
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Morocco's Atlantic gambit: linking restive Sahel to ocean
A planned trade corridor linking the landlocked Sahel to the Atlantic is at the heart of an ambitious Moroccan project to tackle regional instability and consolidate its grip on disputed Western Sahara. The "Atlantic Initiative" promises ocean access to Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger through a new $1.3-billion port in the former Spanish colony claimed by the pro-independence Polisario Front but largely controlled by Morocco. But the project remains fraught with challenges at a time when military coups in the Sahel states have brought new leaderships to power intent on overturning longstanding political alignments following years of jihadist violence. The Moroccan initiative aims to "substantially transform the economy of these countries" and "the region", said King Mohammed VI when announcing it in late 2023. The "Dakhla Atlantic" port, scheduled for completion at El Argoub by 2028, also serves Rabat's goal of cementing its grip on Western Sahara after US President Donald Trump recognised its sovereignty over the territory in 2020. Morocco's regional rival Algeria backs the Polisario but has seen its relations with Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger fray in recent months after the downing a Malian drone. Military coups over the past five years have seen the three Sahel states pivot towards Russia in a bid to restore their sovereignty and control over natural resources after decades within the sphere of influence of their former colonial ruler France. French troops were forced to abandon their bases in the three countries, ending their role in the fight against jihadists who have found sanctuary in the vast semi-arid region on the southern edge of the Sahara. - 'Godsend' - AFP | Abdel Majid BZIOUAT After both the African Union and West African bloc ECOWAS imposed economic sanctions on the new juntas, Morocco emerged as an early ally, with Niger calling the megaproject "a godsend". "Morocco was one of the first countries where we found understanding at a time when ECOWAS and other countries were on the verge of waging war against us," Niger's Foreign Minister Bakary Yaou Sangare said in April during a visit to Rabat alongside his Malian and Burkinabe counterparts. The Sahel countries established a bloc of their own -- the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) -- in September 2023 but have remained dependent on the ports of ECOWAS countries like Benin, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Togo. Rising tensions with the West African bloc could restrict their access to those ports, boosting the appeal of the alternative trade outlet being offered by Rabat. - 'Many steps to take' - AFP | Abdel Majid BZIOUAT Morocco has been seeking to position itself as a middleman between Europe and the Sahel states, said Beatriz Mesa, a professor at the International University of Rabat. With jihadist networks like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group striking ever deeper into sub-Saharan Africa, the security threat has intensified since the departure of French-led troops. Morocco was now "profiting from these failures by placing itself as a reliable Global South partner", Mesa said. Its initiative has won the backing of key actors including the United States, France and the Gulf Arab states, who could provide financial support, according to specialist journal Afrique(s) en mouvement. But for now the proposed trade corridor is little more than an aspiration, with thousands of kilometres of desert road-building needed to turn it into a reality. "There are still many steps to take," since a road and rail network "doesn't exist", said Seidik Abba, head of the Sahel-focused think tank CIRES. Rida Lyammouri of the Policy Center for the New South said the road route from Morocco through Western Sahara to Mauritania is "almost complete", even though it has been targeted by Polisario fighters. Abdelmalek Alaoui, head of the Moroccan Institute for Strategic Intelligence, said it could cost as much as $1 billion to build a land corridor through Mauritania, Mali and Niger all the way to Chad, 3,100 kilometres to the east. And even if the construction work is completed, insecurity is likely to pose a persistent threat to the corridor's viability, he said. By Anouk Riondet
Observer
22-04-2025
- Observer
Morocco volunteers on Sahara clean-up mission
It may be the gateway to the vast Sahara desert, but that doesn't mean it's free of that modern scourge of the environment -- the rubbish humanity discards. In southern Morocco, volunteers are hunting for waste embedded in the sand, and they don't have to look far. Bottles, plastic bags -- "there are all kinds", noted one helper who has come forward to join the initiative cleaning up the edge of a village bordering the Sahara. The initiative marks the 20th International Nomads Festival, which is held in mid-April every year in M'Hamid El Ghizlane in Zagora province in southeast Morocco. Some 50 people, gloved and equipped with rubbish bags, toiled away for five hours -- and collected between 400 and 600 kilos of waste, the organisers estimated. "Clean-up initiatives usually focus on beaches and forests," festival founder Nouredine Bougrab, who lives in the village of some 6,600 people, told AFP. "But the desert also suffers from pollution." The campaign brings together artists, activists and foreign tourists, and is a call for the "world's deserts to be protected", said the 46-year-old. Volunteers, including tourists, cheer in front of bags of waste that they collected, after taking part in a desert cleaning campaign during the Nomads Festival in Mhamid El-Ghizlane in Morocco's southern Sahara desert on April 12, 2025. It may be the gateway to the vast Sahara desert, but that doesn't mean it's free of that modern scourge of the environment: the rubbish humanity discards. (Photo by Abdel Majid BZIOUAT / AFP) Bougrab said the clean-up began at the northern entrance of the village "which was badly affected by pollution" and extended through to the other end of town and the beginning of the "Great Desert". The rubbish is "mainly linked to the massive production of plastic products, low recycling rates and atmospheric pollutants carried by the wind", said anthropologist Mustapha Naimi. Morocco has a population of almost 37 million and they generate about 8.2 million tons of household waste each year, according to the Ministry of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development. "This is equivalent to 811 times the weight of the Eiffel Tower -- enough to fill 2,780 Olympic swimming pools with compacted waste," said Hassan Chouaouta, an international expert in sustainable strategic development. Of this amount, "between six and seven percent" is recycled, he said. - Ancient way of life - Their morning alarm went off "early", according to one volunteer, New York-based French photographer Ronald Le Floch who said the initiative's aim was "to show that it's important to take care of this type of environment". Another helper was Ousmane Ag Oumar, a 35-year-old Malian member of Imarhan Timbuktu, a Tuareg blues group. He called the waste a direct danger to livestock, which are essential to the subsistence of nomadic communities. Anthropologist Naimi agreed: "Plastic waste harms the Saharan environment as it contaminates the land, pasture, rivers and nomadic areas," he said. Pastoral nomadism is a millennia-old way of life based on seasonal mobility and available pasture for livestock. But it is on the wane in Morocco, weakened by climate change and with nomadic communities now tending to stay in one place. The most recent official census of nomads in Morocco dates to 2014, and returned a nomadic population of 25,274 -- 63 percent lower than a decade earlier in 2004. Mohammed Mahdi, a professor of rural sociology, said the country's nomads have "not benefited from much state support, compared to subsidies granted to agriculture, especially for products intended for export". "We give very little to nomadic herders, and a good number have gone bankrupt and given up," he said. Mohamed Oujaa,50, is leader of The Sand Pigeons group who specialise in the "gnawa" music practised in the Maghreb by the descendants of black slaves. For him, a clean environment is vital for future generations, and he hopes the initiative will be "just the first in a series of campaigns to clean up the desert". —AFP
