For Morocco, Solidarity-based Multilateralism is a Doctrine Stemming from Vision of HM the King – FM –

For Morocco, solidarity-based multilateralism is a doctrine stemming from the vision of HM King Mohammed VI, underlined, Thursday, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccans Abroad, Nasser Bourita. This multilateralism finds its expression in concrete measures, such as the vaccine manufacturing project to contribute to the health sovereignty of the African continent, or the many commitments made at the African Action Summit organized on the sidelines of COP22 in Marrakech, said Bourita. The minister was speaking by videoconference at the meeting of the Alliance for Multilateralism held in New York on the sidelines of the 76th United Nations General Assembly Session. Expressing Morocco’s wish to see the Alliance place Africa at the heart of the global crisis exit strategy, in particular, and of post-COVID multilateralism in general, the Minister said that the Kingdom is committed to work with all, to realize the role of the “Alliance for Multilateralism” as a catalyst for multilateralism of action, balance and solidarity. “It is because we are attached to our sovereignties that we choose multilateralism”, insisted Mr. Bourita, calling for its revitalization to keep international cooperation its common goal. According to him, the recovery should be based on concrete initiatives, aimed at appropriating and updating the normative frameworks of our action as UN Member States and at adopting a “shared mapping” of vulnerabilities on the areas of health security, climate change and gender equality to better redress them, together. It is also a question of combining the centrality of the United Nations as a forum for multilateral discussions with the development of cooperation forums with flexible formats, he added. Stressing that the Alliance has the merit of having anticipated the crisis of multilateralism and of having drawn operational consequences from it even before the pandemic comes to confirm it, Mr. Bourita observed that the pandemic has strongly confirmed this crisis, by showing that “we know how to be + alone together, + more than we manage to place the national interest in synergies of collective interests.” In the same regard, the minister said that far from starting the enthusiasm aroused by the Alliance, the pandemic has reinforced it with a sense of urgency and thus gave it a unique momentum. “The Alliance therefore no longer has to prove its relevance. It must now prove its effectiveness,” he said, adding that the themes selected for today’s meeting provide a ground for making health security a global public good at a time when vaccine inequity, in particular in Africa, weakens the response. It is also about creating the conditions for collective resilience, as the pandemic has deepened inequalities and eroded decades of achievements in favor of sustainable development, the minister concluded.