The World Bank has approved a $600 million financing package for Morocco, marking the third phase of the "Strengthening Human Capital for a Resilient Morocco" program. This initiative aims to improve health resilience, enhance childhood human capital, reduce poverty among the elderly, and strengthen climate risk management.
Since 2020, Morocco has been tackling various challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic, economic fluctuations, inflation, natural disasters like earthquakes, and droughts. In response, Morocco is implementing reforms under its New Development Model to promote equitable growth. These include expanding mandatory health insurance coverage, offering free health insurance to vulnerable groups, revamping healthcare services, launching a Direct Social Aid program, extending pension coverage sustainably, and improving climate shock protection.
Previous funding rounds in June 2022 and December 2023 led to legislative changes such as generalizing compulsory health insurance and initiating a comprehensive social assistance program. The current operation seeks to consolidate these achievements by enhancing governance structures and detailing cash transfer and pension scheme implementations while boosting disaster risk management effectiveness.
Morocco's goal of achieving Universal Health Coverage involves increasing health insurance coverage and modernizing service delivery. The government intends for all citizens to be covered under a unified scheme managed by the National Social Security Fund (CNSS). Although significant progress has been made with 75% population coverage, non-salaried workers still face challenges.
The new Direct Social Benefits Program will target up to 60% of those not covered by existing family allowance schemes through support from the National Social Support Agency (ANSS).
"This initiative," stated Ahmadou Moustapha Ndiaye from the World Bank, "aims to further enhance Morocco's social protection system... benefiting climate-vulnerable populations like farmers."