The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) announced on Wednesday that it will participate in Morocco’s Inclusive and Sustainable Development Support Program for Forest Areas (known as PADIDZOF).
The PADIDZOF initiative, financed by the African Development Bank (AfDB), seeks to make Morocco’s forest regions more resilient to climate change while encouraging sustainable development and creating work opportunities for youth and women.
With a budget of 171 million euros, its goal is to restore 133,000 hectares of plant cover in Morocco by 2030.
The initiative will also create 27,500 jobs, especially for youth and women, and increase the annual economic value generated by the forestry and ecotourism sectors to between 2 and 5 billion dirhams
Focusing on climate change-related issues such as drought, wildfires, and desertification, the GCA will contribute to multiple key areas. These will include conducting climate risk assessments to identify vulnerabilities in Morocco’s forestry sector across project locations, performing a comprehensive analysis of the job market to identify opportunities for adaptation jobs within the forestry and agroforestry sectors, proposing strategies specifically focused on creating jobs for youth and women in sustainable forest management practices, and designing and implementing a training strategy.
Manuals and curricula will be developed to encourage climate-smart behaviors and help local communities better adapt to climate change.
“By leveraging our expertise in climate risk assessment and capacity building,” the Center’s CEO, Professor Patrick V. Verkooijen, said, “we aim to support Morocco in safeguarding its forest ecosystems and enhancing the livelihoods of local communities.”
The GCA is an international organization founded in 2018, headquartered in the Netherlands, that promotes adaptation to climate change and works to climate-proof development by promoting policy reforms and influencing investments made by international financial institutions and the private sector.