Climate Opportunities & Partnerships

Middle East & Africa

Water

Morocco and Israel National Water Companies Sign Cooperation Agreement

The two companies will collaborate in the fields of seawater desalination, performance improvement, water sanitation, digital systems management, R&D and innovation.

Nov 19, 2022 / 3 Min
Photo: Robert Anderson on Unsplash

Morocco’s National Office for Electricity and Drinking Water (ONEE) and the national water company of Israel Mekorot, signed on November 17th, an agreement to establish cooperation in the areas of water and liquid sanitation, as reported by The Jerusalem Post and Morocco World News.

 

The agreement, which was signed by Mekorot chairman Yitzhak Aharonovitz and ONEE general director Abderrahim El Hafidi during the Global Investment Forum 2022, will enable the two companies to work together to promote joint cooperation activities in the fields of seawater desalination, performance improvement, water sanitation, digital systems management, R&D and innovation.

 

Israel is a world leader in water technologies reusing nearly 90% of its wastewater and producing nearly 80% of its drinking water through desalination plants.

 

Morocco is facing local water shortages and many of its rural areas suffer from poor water sanitation. “We have more than 32,000 villages in Morocco without access to safe sanitation, and more than 14 million people in Morocco still [pour] their wastewater directly into rivers,” said Salma Bougarrani, co-founder and CEO of Green Watech, a Moroccan organization dedicated to developing and promoting accessible water sanitation solutions throughout the country.

 

“There is a huge opportunity to work on rural sanitation and decentralized sanitation, but also to find low tech solutions to democratize this kind of solution in rural areas in Morocco,” she said.

 

Thursday’s signing follows a similar MOU agreement which took place in December 2020 between the Kingdom of Morocco, represented by the Ministry of Equipment and Water; and the State of Israel, represented by the Ministry of Water Resources.