Rabat — The Economic Commission for Africa, the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Environment of the Kingdom of Morocco and the RES4Africa Foundation held on Thursday 10 September an online validation meeting on Energy Regulation and Private Sector Investment in Morocco.
The meeting was organized by the Energy, Infrastructure and Services Section (EISS) of the Economic Commission for Africa with support from the Minister of Energy, Mines and Environment of Morocco, Aziz Rabah and in close partnership with the RES4Africa Foundation. The meeting was also supported and facilitated by ECA's North Africa Subregional Office.
Several senior energy sector experts and representatives of various national energy institutions attended the meeting, including experts from the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Environment, the National Agency for Electricity Regulation, the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (MASEN), the National Office for Electricity and Potable Water and the Research Institute on Solar and Renewable Energy.
The meeting, which aimed to validate regulatory data gathered for the electricity sector of Morocco and ultimately help crowd-in private sector investment in the energy sector, was held as part of a regional effort to address regulatory barriers to private sector participation in the sector; an initiative based on a comprehensive regulatory review methodology validated in December 2019. A draft country report for Morocco was also validated at the meeting.
According to EISS project coordinator, Yohannes Hailu (ECA), the meeting was an opportunity to validate Morocco's regulatory data and enable an objective assessment of existing strengths and key areas of remaining regulatory improvement in the electricity value chain. Hailu further highlighted that the regulatory review work currently being carried out across Africa is part of the ECA Executive Secretary's efforts in support to the SDG7 Finance Initiative, which seeks to strengthen the sector's governance to crowd-in investment in the energy sector.
For his part, EISS lead Robert Lisinge (ECA) said this work will also play a key role in enhancing private sector engagement in energy and infrastructure development as regulations and finances remain key areas of focus in ECA efforts to address the infrastructure gap in the Decade of Action, and similar efforts are being carried out to broaden the regulatory review work to the transport sector.
Similar validation meetings have been held with experts in Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Zambia, in July and August 2020. The second phase of the regulatory review work is currently on-going in Côte d'Ivoire, Mauritania, Rwanda, Senegal and Seychelles.
