Morocco offers a huge project to enable the countries of the isolated African Sahel region to obtain a sea port on the Atlantic Ocean through roads that extend to thousands of kilometers, but its implementation faces challenges in a region witnessing geopolitical fluctuations and armed groups.
Moroccan King Mohammed VI announced the project in a speech in 2023, saying: “We propose to launch an initiative at the international level aimed at enabling the coast countries to access the Atlantic Ocean”, which extends over the disputed Western Sahara coasts with the Polisario Front.
Rabat aims to enhance its influence on the African continent and at the same time giving a stronger boost to development in the disputed region, the closest geography of the coast countries.
Transformations
The project proposal comes in light of the transformations in both Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, which is classified from the African Sahel countries, which are countries rich in natural resources that constitute an alliance between them and governed by military systems that reached power after coups between 2020 and 2023 and converged with Russia after abandoning France, the former colonial power.
Amid these transformations, the African Union and the Economic Group of West African States (ICAS) made decisions that exceeded the isolation of the three countries.
After receiving the company of Burkina Faso and Mali by King Mohammed VI in Rabat at the end of April, Morocco said that “one of the first countries that we found had an understanding at a time when Iakas and other countries were about to launch a war on us.”
The three ministers expressed the commitment of their countries to “accelerate” the implementation of the project.
triangle
In September 2023, these three countries formed the coalition of the Sahel countries.
The three countries are currently dependent on ports in several countries of Ikas (Benin, Togo, Senegal, Ivory Coast and Ghana), but their tension with this group can threaten their access to its ports.
She also lives tension on its northern border with Algeria.
To this context, the researcher at the International University of Rabat Beatrice Miza also adds the “failure” of European operations in recent years in the region similar to the Berkhan operation.
And you see that Morocco, which is similar to a “triangle” with Africa and the West, is in the process of “taking advantage of these failures by presenting itself as a reliable partner to Europe and Africa alike.
However, after announcing this project, the question remains about the extent of feasibility and financing.
“Stages must be cut”
The United States, France and Gulf countries are likely to contribute to financing the project, according to a report of the Moroccan specialized “Africa On Movement” magazine, countries that have officially declared support for the idea.
It will be a road network linking Chad, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Mauritania to Morocco, and it will cost about one billion dollars, according to the head of the Moroccan Institute for Strategic Intelligence Abdel Malek Al -Alawi.
So far, the supposed path of these methods is still unclear, as Chad is about 3 thousand kilometers away from Morocco, and it also appears “somewhat less involved in the project” compared to the tripartite alliance, according to the head of the International Center for Studies and Thinking about the coast, a friend of Aba.
“There are still stages that must be cut” on the way of implementing the project, as long as the “road network or railways is currently not present,” added a friend of Aba, noting that the small number of cars in the countries of the region.
According to Reda Al -Yamouri from the “Policy Center for the New South”, a “new land road” between Morocco and Mauritania has become “close to completion”, and Nouakchott works on its soil to ensure the continuity of the corridor.
But the road project depends mainly on security in the coast, according to Al -Alawi, because “if skirmishes occur, then the fait accompli, your business stops,” knowing that the region suffers from continuous jihadist attacks.
With regard to export and import, the future port of Dakhla, a depth port that is designed within the dynamic development of Western Sahara, will be available to serve the Moroccan initiative.
This project, which costs 1.2 billion euros ($ 1.4 billion) at the end of 2021, was launched in the brown in the heart of the region, and was completed by 38%, to enter the operating space in 2028.