The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank on Wednesday in Abidjan, approved funding to the tune of 264 million euros for Morocco as part of its response to the Covid-19 (PARC-19), a press release from the AfDB disclosed.
With a rapid deployment of resources, PARC-19 contributes to the kingdom’s response efforts to the health, economic and social crisis triggered by the Covid-19 epidemic, the statement said.
“Faced with this unprecedented situation, we are doing everything to support Morocco in containing the spread of the virus and mitigating its economic and social consequences,” the quoted Mohamed El Azizi, Managing Director of the Bank for North Africa as saying.
“With PARC-19, we do this through a multidimensional and targeted approach,” he added.
In order to protect the population, the primary objective of the program is to help limit the spread of the virus and further improve the effectiveness of the kingdom’s health regulations.
Thus it will contribute to the increase in the number of hospitals authorized to carry out virological screening.
The second objective of this exercise is to help preserve the purchasing power of Moroccans.
To this end, the program will shore up public financial support measures, which benefit employees in the formal and informal sectors during periods of confinement.
It will also support government efforts to support 4.3 million households in the informal sector, as well as 800,000 employees affiliated to the National Social Security Fund (CNSS).
In order to preserve jobs and promote the conditions for economic recovery, PARC-19 will facilitate access to funding for self-employed entrepreneurs and strengthen the cash flow of very small and medium-sized enterprises (TPME).
The expected result is to preserve 75 percent of jobs affected by the crisis.
“This new program will give the country a certain amount of leeway for budgetary maneuver, preserve the conditions for growth, support MSMEs and help most vulnerable people,” said Leila Farah Mokaddem, the Country Responsible of the African Development Bank for Morocco, also quoted in the statement.
Morocco was one of the founding members of the AfDB in 1964.
The bank’s commitment to Morocco amounted to more than 10 billion euros with funding covering different sectors, including health, energy, water, transport, human development, agriculture and the financial sector..
HA/fss/as/APA