The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA), an international organization that promotes adaptation to climate change impacts, announced Wednesday its involvement in an African Development Bank (AfDB) led project, PADIDZOF, aimed at improving Morocco's forest areas' climate resilience and creating jobs for youth and women. In a press release, GCA stated that PADIDZOF, with a total investment of €171 million, aims to restore 133,000 hectares of vegetation cover in Morocco by 2030. This project also focuses on creating 27,500 jobs, with a specific focus on youth and women, and increasing the annual economic value generated by the forestry and ecotourism sectors to between 2 and 5 billion dirhams. GCA will address the challenges caused by climate change, such as droughts, wildfires, and desertification. GCA will contribute in several key areas: 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 to build the capacity of key stakeholders, including government officials, local authorities, and startups. This will involve developing manuals and curriculum to promote climate-smart practices and enhance the adaptive capacity of local communities. By providing this targeted support, GCA aims to play a critical role in achieving PADIDZOF's goals, particularly in making Morocco's forestry sector more resilient to the impacts of climate change. «Our collaboration with the AfDB on the PADIDZOF project underscores GCA's commitment to fostering climate resilience in vulnerable regions. By leveraging our expertise in climate risk assessment and capacity building, we aim to support Morocco in safeguarding its forest ecosystems and enhancing the livelihoods of local communities», Professor Patrick V. Verkooijen, CEO of the Global Center on Adaptation, said. For the record, Morocco's forestry sector represents up to 2% of the country's GDP. However, Morocco's forests are increasingly exposed to climate change-induced hazards like droughts, water erosion and severe wildfires. In 2023, Morocco lost about 7,600 hectares of forests to wildfires.
