Morocco News central:  WB Loans Morocco $211.5m to Support Education Reform, Rural Roads Programme

WB Loans Morocco $211.5m to Support Education Reform, Rural Roads Programme
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redaction on 29/06/2010 10:35:30
 
The first loan of $60 million is intended to support the implementation of the
Education Emergency Programme 2009-12, which aims to accelerate the education
reform process, drawing on lessons learned from the previous decade's programs.
The second, worth $70 million, aims at modernising farming irrigation in the Oum
Errabii basin.
As to the third loan ($81.5 million), it is designed to support the
implementation of the Second National Rural Roads Project, which covers the
period 2005-2012.
Salaheddine Mezouar, Moroccan Economy and Finance Minister, who signed the first
two agreements along with Françoise Clottes, the Bank's resident representative
in Morocco, voiced satisfaction with cooperation ties between Morocco and the
WB.
He added that these relations, which have been boosted over the past years, have
made the Bank one of the major donors supporting the Kingdom's efforts to
promote economic growth and combat poverty.
For her part, Clottes hailed the partnership relationships between the two
parties.
These relations, the two officials said at the signing ceremony, are governed by
a strategic partnership framework (Country Partnership Strategy -CPS 2010-2013)
under which the Bank's Board of Directors approved seven loans of $729 million
covering reform programmes and investment projects.
The Bank has recently said, in a statement carried by its website, that     the
education development policy loan falls in line with the new CPS 2010-2013 for
Morocco "which spells out the education sector reform as a key priority as part
of its two strategic objectives".
MAP