Marruecos recibirá 400 millones de dólares para impulsar la inclusión financiera
As early as 2019, the Kingdom of Morocco was already receiving $700 million from the World Bank for "Financing in support of financial inclusion and digital inclusion development policies". Now, four years later, the North African territory continues to work to boost the improvement of financing and digitisation, and the positive effects of these through new initiatives.
In fact, as stated in a report published last May 2022 (under the title 'The benefits of digital for Middle Eastern and North African countries: adopting digital technologies can accelerate growth and create jobs'), more than 60% of the Moroccan population uses the Internet, while the country's institutions raise the figures for technological adoption to 67%.
In this sense, the good results of boosting and bringing new technologies closer to the entire population seemed to lead Rabat, in 2020, to launch a new plan to finance development policies in favour of digital and financial inclusion. This project consisted of three distinct phases, financed in three stages. The first of these involved an initial loan - from the World Bank - of 500 million dollars; the second, 450 million; and now, the third and recently negotiated entry will involve a contribution of an additional 400 million that will be received in March 2023.
A total funding of 1.35 billion dollars, which, added to that of the 2019 project, will reach 2.05 billion dollars (more than 1.905 billion euros, almost 21 billion Moroccan dirhams) mobilised by the Bretton Woods institutions (the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, IMF) between 2019 and 2023, provided that the World Bank Board of Directors officially approves the latest figures, according to the Moroccan daily Le Matin.
In addition to these contributions, the Bank AI-Maghrib (Morocco's central bank) and the National Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (ANRT), as well as the public and private sectors, all of them with the aim of turning technological inclusion and digital transformation into a catalyst for boosting the country's economy and integrating particularly vulnerable populations into the digitalisation process (such as rural communities, women and young people).
To this end, Rabat envisages four fundamental axes: improving the financial inclusion of individuals, micro-enterprises and SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises), diversifying financial instruments and promoting microfinance (to adapt to each population); supporting the development of digital financing platforms and infrastructures; and increasing support for digital entrepreneurs. In this way, the project is presented as an initiative that is expected to benefit households and businesses, including start-up companies and young entrepreneurs.
The Rabat government, with the connivance of the Alawite monarch, King Mohammed VI, is moving ahead with a project that is expected to address digital financial services and household resilience, as well as digital as a meeting point for technologically innovative companies and entrepreneurship in the digital world. In addition, the programme also plans to boost and improve connectivity in rural and urban regions where it is not yet available.