Field Train Students, CSOs & Officials in Morocco

During the first week of September, representatives of the Multi-Actor Partnership (MAP) project from around the world gathered for their monthly virtual meeting. The participants were from Morocco, represented by the High Atlas Foundation, India, Ukraine, Kenya, Kosovo, Senegal, Sri Lanka, and Madagascar.

The meeting’s purpose was to monitor the progress of the MAP project while appreciating and recognizing the success made so far. That the same project is being implemented in different countries with different policies and governments makes the processes unique and customized. However, it also proves that renewable energies are a topic that concerns all the nations no matter what their policies are, as they all share the same environment.

As the MAP project is reaching the end of the second phase of its implementation in most countries, some challenges are starting to appear, especially as participants are getting close to the execution phase. These challenges can be summarized in two categories: governmental challenges and partnership challenges.

In some countries, having an agreement with the government or even getting them involved in environmental initiatives is a real challenge. The second challenge is attracting partners from different sectors and fields and keeping them involved and interested in renewable energies.

These challenges had an even bigger impact during the pandemic of COVID-19, as it temporarily disconnected the partners and the government from the environmental goals that they were seeking and shifted their focus toward the fight against the virus. As a result, some projects were put on hold until the pandemic ends, and this may cause a delay in the project’s process.

Feedback and suggestions were exchanged during the meeting to help each country create solutions that are self-customized in order to deal with the current challenges, such as sharing success stories to re-motivate the partners to be engaged in the common vision.

The High Atlas Foundation continues to lead the Morocco-based MAP project, which is starting to reach the implementation phase. This will enable concrete results, and soon.