Morocco’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccan Expatriates, Nasser Bourita, highlighted, in the United Nations in New York, an Atlantic Initiative for Sahel, during a ministerial meeting chaired by US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken.
Launched in 2022 under Rabat’s Atlantic African States Process, by King Mohammed VI of Morocco, this strategy is an ambitious cooperation initiative aiming to promote shared peace, stability and prosperity in the African Atlantic region.
At the meeting entitled: “Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation” Bourita stressed that the Royal initiative aims to enable African countries to adopt their own development process. Africa’s Atlantic seaboard comprises 23 countries and 70% of the population, and accounts for 40% of inter-African trade.
This area, which is brimming with potential and opportunities in key sectors such as tourism and mineral resources, also faces enormous challenges including terrorism, climate change, maritime insecurity and overfishing.
Welcoming the many important steps taken by the countries of the African Initiative to strengthen its cooperation framework, Bourita recalled that a Secretariat had been set up in Rabat, an Action Programme had been adopted and a Forum of Ministers of Justice had been created.
Within this framework, he announced that the Action Plans of the three thematic groups, which provide for concrete actions in the fields of security, blue economy, connectivity, energy and climate change, will be drawn up at a forthcoming ministerial meeting of these States.
Morocco is convinced that a solid, mutually beneficial partnership is necessary to support the implementation of common goals, through efficient cooperation mechanisms, he said.
“Through coordinated efforts between our initiatives, which are complementary to each other, we will be able to better serve the interest of the Atlantic community to foster shared prosperity and stability,” Bourita added. Morocco is delighted to have actively contributed to the American initiative by co-leading, with Angola and Spain, the Working Group on Marine Planning.”
Separately, Nasser Bourita, held talks in New York with High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell. This meeting, in the margins of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, focused on the means to give new impetus to the Morocco-EU strategic partnership and develop it into a model in the Mediterranean region, in the current geopolitical landscape. The two officials also discussed several bilateral and regional issues of common interest.
