Morocco’s National Office for Electricity and Drinking Water (ONEE) launched the Programme Qualité de l’Eau en Afrique on 14-15 April in Rabat, at an expert workshop that brought together water utility operators from three partner countries. The programme, developed in partnership with the French Development Agency (AFD) under a memorandum of cooperation signed in December 2025, marks a significant milestone in Morocco’s South-South cooperation strategy: it is the first AFD programme in which an African public operator — ONEE — serves as the provider of technical expertise rather than its recipient.
The programme will unfold in several phases through September 2026. Its immediate beneficiaries are SONES in Senegal, SNDE in Mauritania and CAMWATER in Cameroon — three utilities that have directly expressed interest in Morocco’s experience in water quality control. ONEE’s qualifications for this role are substantial. The Office operates a central laboratory that holds both ISO 17025 accreditation and ISO 9001 certification, supported by a national network of over 100 laboratories staffed by more than 300 highly qualified technicians who ensure rigorous monitoring of potable water quality across the Kingdom.
AFD Director in Rabat Catherine Bonnaud confirmed the significance of the shift in the programme’s architecture: over more than three decades, AFD has worked with Morocco to give 4 million people access to improved drinking water services. This new phase takes that partnership a step further by projecting Morocco’s accumulated technical capital outward, in service of populations across Francophone Africa. The programme is fully consistent with the African Water Vision to 2063 adopted by AMCOW — the African Ministerial Council on Water — at the African Union’s 39th Summit in Addis Ababa in February 2026.
ONEE Director General Tarik Hamane situated the programme within King Mohammed VI’s broader African cooperation strategy, framing it as an expression of both the Royal Atlantic Initiative and the initiative aimed at facilitating Sahel countries’ access to the Atlantic Ocean. Morocco’s South-South cooperation approach in water, energy and sanitation has consistently been built around the transfer of expertise, technical assistance and capacity-building rather than aid, and this programme embodies that model at its most operationally concrete.
The launch of the programme coincides with 2026 being declared the African Year of Water and Sanitation by the African Union — a political context that amplifies its significance. For the three partner utilities, the programme offers direct access to tested methodologies for water quality management that took Morocco decades to develop. For Morocco, it consolidates a role as a reference partner and credible technical voice on one of the continent’s most pressing development challenges.
