The French Development Agency (AFD) and Morocco have recently signed a 100 million euro loan agreement dedicated to the support program for improving the performance of communes. This operation complements World Bank financing (272 million euros), said the AFD in a statement, stressing that the program will increase the resilience of territories, strengthen their capacity to support economic recovery and local development, and guarantee the continuity and improvement of the quality of local public services. The aim of the program is to strengthen communes, which play a leading role in the provision of public services and in the relationship between the administration and the citizen. It thus intends to strengthen governance and increase the level of equipment provision in the 100 or so participating communes. The latter account for nearly 80 per cent of the urban population and 50 per cent of the country's total population. «This contribution will depend on the results achieved by the communes in the framework of an annual evaluation of their performance, carried out by the ministry of the Interior», said the statement, pointing out that thanks to this incentive mechanism, the communes will have reinforced investment capacities. In addition to this financial support, the program, which will run for a period of 5 years (2019-2024), also offers non-financial support through adapted technical assistance and training services that will be made available to the communes. «In this framework, the AFD has provided, in parallel with the loan, a 500 000 euro grant to support local authorities in the creation and implementation of internal audit units», the same source added, noting that internal audit is a key management tool for improving local authorities' management and risk control skills. The program will also contribute to the development of inter-communal structure, with a view to improving the efficiency of certain key public services such as public transport and waste collection.
