The DAI/Nathan Group is excited to announce the award of the Morocco Economic Competitiveness (MEC) project. A four-year USAID program with an additional option year that would take the project’s funding to $34 million, MEC takes a multi-sectoral approach to reduce barriers to productivity, trade, and investment in Morocco. MEC will have three components:

•       Improving the economic enabling environment: continuing work begun under DAI’s Improving the Business Climate in Morocco program, this component includes simplifying administrative procedures, reforming the commercial registry and the legal framework for collateral registry, reforming the court process for insolvency, and promoting alternative dispute resolution.

•       Using water sustainably for agricultural growth: building on DAI’s work under the regional Advancing the Blue Revolution Initiative, and also on work begun under Integrated Agribusiness Program, this component will include reusing wastewater, managing river basin water resources, and supporting more efficient agriculture water management practices. Export promotion and value chain activities will be carried out as part of Morocco’s public-private framework for agricultural development in two target regions.

•       Strengthening workforce development: this component involves matching skills with private sector demand for labor in agricultural or export sectors.

Using a 21st-century definition of competitiveness and given the economic and environmental dimensions of the project, DAI has proposed that MEC’s implementation be entirely carbon neutral.