Water Stress: Royal Speech Provides ‘Visionary Perspective’ – Brazilian Expert –

HM King Mohammed VI’s Throne Day speech provides “a visionary perspective” for tackling Morocco’s years-long water stress, said Brazilian geopolitics and international relations expert Marcus Vinicius De Freitas. “His Majesty the King’s vision is clear and relevant to the water issue, its scarcity and the optimisation of its use”, De Freitas told MAP. Besides being essential to human existence at a time when food insecurity is a pressing international issue, water plays a fundamental role in several sectors of activity, he stated. To De Freitas, the concern of ensuring interconnection between water basins to improve water distribution reflects the Kingdom’s concern to guarantee a continuous supply of drinking and irrigation water. He also emphasised that Morocco’s decision to build seawater desalination plants is extremely relevant, given the scarcity of this vital resource, highlighting the importance of this project for any country, based on investment in new applicable technologies. In this respect, the Brazilian expert said that cooperation between Morocco and Brazil, a country with one of the world’s longest coastlines, could be “revolutionary”, particularly in terms of developing the desalination industry. “Brazil, which has enormous quantities of drinking water, is also faced with the problem of water scarcity in some regions. Exchanging experiences with Morocco can help the country make optimal, rational and sustainable use of existing resources”, he said. He concluded that both countries can enrich the global debate on water resources’ preservation and efficient management, namely in regions where they are abundant or becoming increasingly scarce.