Join on WhatsApp
Join on Telegram
Rabat – The European Investment Bank (EIB) is providing Morocco with a €1 billion loan aimed at supporting the country’s relief efforts to effectively address the impacts of the earthquake that struck the Al Haouz region on September 8, the EIB told Morocco World News (MWN).
The loan is part of the bank’s commitment to help Morocco’s national recovery program. The bank made the announcement of its latest loan to Morocco following a meeting between EIB Vice President Ricardo Mourinho Felix and Morocco’s Delegate Minister for Budget Fouzi Lekjaa on the sidelines of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) annual meetings in Marrakech.
The Al Haouz quake is the strongest and deadliest to have hit Morocco in the past 120 years, killing nearly 3,000 people and injuring thousands others.
The earthquake also left thousands of families homeless, and efforts are underway to reconstruct the region and provide substantial financial and relocation assistance to the local populations.
With this new loan, the EIB aims to join Morocco’s efforts to help reconstruct the earthquake-affected region, in line with its priority objective of promoting sustainable development in the region.
In addition to addressing the earthquake’s aftermath, the fund will focus on sustainable infrastructure, which is at the heart of the Bank’s expertise and priorities.
“I can comment that the EIB will commit 1 billion over the next three years to support the plans of the government,” the EIB Vice President told Morocco World News.
Felix stressed that the bank has long expressed its willingness and ability to support and accompany Moroccan authorities in their efforts to cope with the far-reaching challenges posed by the devastating aftermath of the September 8 earthquake.
“We already discussed repurposing operations that we have in particular with schools so we can reconstruct the schools that were destroyed,” he said.
He also spoke glowingly of his meeting with Lekjaa, describing it as “very good.” 
EIB Vice President Ricardo Mourinho Felix
The bank’s overview highlights its commitment to helping address challenges such as climate change, supporting sustainable livelihoods, and providing financial assistance to vulnerable communities around the world.
In addition, figures from the bank show that total EIB Group financing signed last year amounted to €72.45 billion, of which €9.5 billion was outside the EU.
Alongside this EIB support, Morocco put aside a budget of $11.7 billion for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of areas affected by the September 8 earthquake.
The five-year program is expected to benefit 4.2 million people in the affected areas.
Read also: Timeline: The Deadly September 8 Earthquake in Morocco
As part of the program, Morocco has set up financial aid or allowances that will be paid monthly to families affected by the earthquake for a period of one year.
Families whose homes collapsed during the earthquake will also receive $13,600 as compensation, while those whose homes were only partially damaged will receive $7.780 in compensation.
Beyond this budget, Morocco has set up a special fund to collect aid and donations to contribute to the relief effort.
Earlier this week, the governor of Morocco’s central bank, Abdellatif Jouahri, announced that the fund has to date collected MAD 12 billion or $1.15 billion.
Jouahri made his remarks on Monday at the opening of the ongoing annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in Marrakech, where international speakers and high profile officials highlighted Morocco’s efforts to address the earthquake crisis.
Also attending the Marrakech meetings, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva hailed Morocco’s resilience and its forward-looking vision for rebuilding the earthquake-ravaged areas and communities.
“I saw a glimpse of how the country is thinking of building forwards, rather than just restoring what was there,” Georgieva said as she recalled her visit to affected communities.
The EIB loan comes less than two weeks after the IMF Executive Board also announced in September that it had approved a $1.3 billion Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) loan to support Morocco’s transition to a greener economy and to help strengthen its preparedness and resilience against natural disasters, including from climate change.
“Climate change represents a major risk to Morocco’s development but also offers opportunities,” the IMF said in a statement on September 28. “Drought and water scarcity have become a major source of macroeconomic volatility, with particularly adverse impacts on agriculture, while the fallout from the recent earthquake points to the potential implications of natural disasters, including from climate change.”
