Irrigated agriculture is at the heart of Morocco's economic and social development. It plays a crucial role in meeting Morocco's food demands. It also generates more than 75% of the country's agricultural exports, providing jobs for half the rural labour force. However, irrigation monopolises the country's scarce water resources, accounting for 85% of water usage. With water resources becoming increasingly scarce, Morocco urgently needs to find a better way to manage water for irrigation. Indeed, the irrigation sector in Morocco is confronted with several constraints, mainly because of the limits of the institutional framework that continues to govern the sector. These limits, which mainly concern the Regional Offices for Agricultural Development (ORMVAs), can be summarised as follows: their statutory framework as public institutions of an administrative nature; their current budgetary framework, which does not establish the principle of separation of public service missions and commercial missions; their dependence on the State's budgetary resources; and the relational framework that establishes a state-to-user relationship in which the farmer positions himself in the State's favour rather than as a customer of the water service.

These limits have not allowed the irrigation sector to generate sufficient internal financial resources to guarantee the equipment's sustainability and ensure an efficient water service. Even recurrent expenses of this service continue to be partly covered by budgetary transfers. In this context and since the end of the 1990s, the Department of Agriculture, after a thorough examination of the feasibility of the various possible options: (i) the autonomy of the water service within the ORMVA, (ii) the transfer of management to farmers, and (iii) the delegated management in a private setting, concluded that the option of delegated management in a public-private partnership framework that represents an innovation is appropriate.

The public-private partnership in irrigation consists of interesting private operators in investing and managing irrigation infrastructure in irrigated perimeters under delegated management/concession contracts. The irrigation water service in this perimeter is a public service delegated under the law.

The objective is to improve the technical, economic, and financial conditions of the management of the irrigation water service in these perimeters, in this case:

• Better Water and energy efficiency;
• Optimisation of the use of water resources and the costs of operation and

• maintenance;
• The sustainability of the developments achieved.
• Improvement of the water service;
• And The reduction of Government budget transfers for the management of irrigation schemes.

In this innovation, the intervention of the private sector covers the following main tasks:

• Co-finance irrigation schemes;
• Design and build irrigation infrastructure;
• Manage, operate and maintain these infrastructures to ensure water distribution to the farmer, who is the user, in optimal conditions. Of course, the irrigation infrastructure remains public property;
• Bring expertise and innovation for the modernisation of irrigation;
• Support the risks related to the irrigation project (construction risks, operation, and maintenance risks, financial risks, commercial risks, etc.),
• Collect remuneration from the users based on a tariff of the water service validated by the government, etc.

Water Saving through the Innovation

About 70% of the irrigated areas of the region are fed by groundwater. For twenty years now, the abstraction of irrigation water far exceeds the possibilities of renewal of the water table of Souss. This situation has resulted in an annual reduction of the groundwater of the order of 1.5 to 2 m.

It should be noted that the EL Guerdane perimeter (10,000 ha), the only perimeter currently in delegated operation, has continued since its inception in 2009 to record the best-expected performance in terms of satisfaction of contractual water allocations, the efficiency of distribution, recovery rate, the satisfaction of user complaints and their information in real-time, intervention diligence, quality of maintenance and maintenance.

Environmental and social impacts:

• Energy-saving: Reduction of Water pumping costs by more than 50%;
• Inhibition of the phenomenon of abandonment of farms and

• safeguarding the wealth of the district ;
• Preservation of around 11,000 jobs in the region;
• Creation of 40 direct permanent jobs in the region, and between 300 and 400 jobs when the work is carried out (28 months).
• Preservation of the Souss water table: 65 MCM
• Water-saving on pumping the water table by mobilising a resource alternative: 45 MCM from the Aoulouz-Mokhtar Soussi dam complex
• Saving irrigation water: by adopting drip irrigation systems commonly called Goutte à Goutte at the level of farms benefiting from the water service

Implementation of the Innovation

This innovation brought about the realisation of the Public-Private Partnership project to safeguard the citrus area of El Guerdane in Souss (10,000 ha). A delegated management agreement was signed in 2005 between the Ministry of Agriculture and a private operator (Amensouss company) to co-finance, implement and manage the irrigation infrastructure. Indeed, the construction was completed in July 2009, and management by the delegate started in October 2009 after inauguration by HM King Mohammed VI on October 2, 2010.

Scope for Further Expansion of the Innovation

For decades attempts have been made to avoid jeopardising the whole effort of the national community in the field of irrigation. The salvation by which the sector must be sustainably improved is reforming the institutional framework governing this service. The content of this reform is summarised in:

• The adaptation of the texts by repealing the statutory and regulatory provisions of a prescriptive nature.
• The continuation and consolidation of the policy encourage users to invest in modernising irrigation techniques on the plot (localised irrigation, pivot, improved spraying, etc.).
• The separation of the management of the irrigation service from the other activities of the ORMVAs.
• The financing of the extension of irrigation, particularly through the opening of the irrigation sector to private developers in the framework of public-private partnership, was the most appropriate choice of management of the water irrigation service to ensure its durability and quality.

The PPP Irrigation Program was launched in September 2008. To maximise the chances of success of delegated irrigation management, the Department of Agriculture is proceeding with the structuring of each of the PPP projects through in-depth studies. Each project has two critical phases: (i) a feasibility study and definition of strategic partnership options, at all legal, institutional, technical, economic, and financial levels; and (ii) the execution of the call for tenders for the designation of the private delegate and the establishment and signing of the contractual documents (delegated management agreement, specifications, user contracts, public financing agreement, and water supply agreement). The program concerned the following perimeters:

• The existing irrigation schemes for modernisation and improvement of their management: Loukkos (26,500 ha), Tadla (98,000 ha), Doukkala (95,000 ha), Gharb (117,000 ha), Moulouya (65,400 ha), Haouz (143,000 ha). These projects have been the subject of feasibility studies;
• New hydro-agricultural development projects (in the feasibility study phase): extension of irrigation in Gharb (113,900 ha) and the Loukkos perimeter (9,700 ha); Dar Khrofa project in Loukkos (21,000 ha); development of newly irrigated areas downstream of the Kaddoussa Dam (5,442 ha); extension of irrigation in the Dakhla zone irrigated from desalinated Water (5,000 ha) which is in the phase of negotiation;
•  Irrigation safeguard projects in areas with high agricultural production potential: the seawater desalination irrigation project in the Chtouka area in Souss-Massa (15,000 ha); Azemmour - BirJdid coastal zone irrigation project (3,200 ha), which are in the phase of construction and subscription.

The record of the PPP program exceeded all expectations. The structuring studies carried out or in progress have involved 545,000 ha in the existing perimeters, 185,000 ha of new irrigation schemes, and 18,000 ha of conservation irrigation projects.