VZCZCXYZ0001
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHRB #0053/01 0271255
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 271255Z JAN 10
FM AMEMBASSY RABAT
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1087
INFO RUCNMGH/MAGHREB COLLECTIVE
RUEHAM/AMEMBASSY AMMAN 0657
RUEHCL/AMCONSUL CASABLANCA 0059
RHEBAAA/DEPT OF ENERGY WASHINGTON DC
RUEHRC/DEPT OF AGRICULTURE WASHDC

UNCLAS RABAT 000053 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR NEA/MAG AND NEA/PPD, OES/STC AND AF/W 
OES/STC PLEASE PASS TO SCIENCE ENVOY ZERHOUNI 
USAID/W FOR MEA 
AMMAN FOR ESTH - BHALLA 
DOE FOR AFRICAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN POLICY - 
  ERICKSON 
USDA FOR FAS/OSTA AND FAS/OCBD 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: TNGD TSPL EINV ETRD KPAO MO XY
SUBJECT: MOROCCANS PROPOSE AREAS FOR SCIENCE-TECH 
COOPERATION 
 
REF: RABAT 0006 (NOTAL) 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary: Responding to President Obama's 
call for increased cooperation in scientific and 
technological fields, prominent Moroccan 
researchers and businesspersons have created a 
working group to identify promising areas of U.S.- 
Morocco collaboration, including agriculture, 
energy, aerospace, health, phosphates, water, and 
education.  Moroccan officials, researchers, and 
businesses are excited about the prospect of 
enhanced cooperation with the U.S.  However, they 
caution that other countries are also wooing 
Moroccan partners, and the U.S. needs to follow up 
quickly on the President's commitments to avoid 
missing opportunities.  End Summary. 
 
-------------------------------------------- 
MOROCCAN INITIATIVE RESPONDS TO POTUS SPEECH 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (U) Inspired by the President's June 4 speech 
in Cairo, a working group led by members of the 
Moroccan Fulbright Alumni Association (MFAA) has 
conducted a series of consultations and 
brainstorming meetings to propose areas ripe for 
scientific and technical research and development 
collaboration with the United States.  The group 
includes former Fulbright beneficiaries and other 
Moroccans prominent in science and technology- 
oriented businesses and institutions, and familiar 
with U.S. society, science and technology 
capabilities, and business culture.  The group also 
includes representatives of most of the Government 
of Morocco (GOM) entities that deal with research 
and development, as well as the major private 
sector actors in developing and commercializing 
science and technology products in most fields. 
The Minister of Commerce, Industry and New 
Technologies, Ahmed Reda Chami, has been supporting 
the group and providing his input into its 
deliberations and conclusions. 
 
¶3.  (U) In a January 14 presentation to Public 
Affairs Counselor and EconOff, the leaders of the 
group, Amine Bensaid and Si Benasser Alaoui, 
academics in computer sciences and agronomy, 
respectively, summarized the working group's 
conclusions.  In discussions with Embassy officers, 
the MFAA representatives highlighted Morocco's 
strengths in collaboration with the U.S., 
emphasizing "win-win" opportunities for both 
countries, and noted the particular niches that the 
working group identified as ripe for cooperation. 
 
-------------------------- 
WHAT'S IN IT FOR THE U.S.? 
-------------------------- 
 
¶4.  (U) Morocco is already engaged in long-term 
efforts to put science and technology research and 
development efforts to use in its economic growth 
goals.  With its young demographic profile, high 
urban and youth unemployment, and generally high 
level of capacity in science and technology, 
Morocco is poised to take full advantage of 
cooperation with the U.S. in a way that showcases 
the benefits of partnership.  The U.S. has already 
committed hundreds of millions of dollars to 
Morocco's economic development through USAID and 
the Millennium Challenge Account Compact, and 
scientific and technical exchanges already take 
place, notably in health sciences and past 
successes in agronomy.  Efforts to incorporate more 
science and technology cooperation will build on 
the significant U.S. investment in Morocco's growth 
and enhance its results in job creation and poverty 
reduction. 
 
¶5.  (U) Moroccan researchers are conducting 
innovative research in areas with direct links to 
improving economic development.  Morocco has major 
research programs in phosphates (for fertilizer and 
energy uses), agronomy and green energy, for 
example.  Morocco also boasts world-leading 
potential in wind, solar and other renewable energy 
potential, putting it in a position to translate 
into immediate progress toward development goals 
any technology and innovation resulting from 
collaboration with the U.S. 
 
¶6.  (U) Morocco is the only country in the world 
 
that has concluded free trade agreements with both 
the U.S. and the European Union, opening the 
potential for tremendous market access for the 
results of commercialization of research and 
development.  Morocco is also a gateway to the rest 
of Africa, particularly francophone West and 
Central Africa, and has deep ties of collaboration 
and assistance with other African countries in the 
economic, science, health and technology fields. 
These include assistance to develop potable water 
distribution systems, electric grid management 
technical assistance, diffusion of agricultural 
techniques and know-how, and training of thousands 
of African students who attend Moroccan technical 
and scientific institutions.  Thus, any U.S. 
investment in developing or transferring to Morocco 
technologies and knowledge could be further 
diffused from Morocco to many developing African 
countries, multiplying the benefits. 
 
------------------------------ 
PROMISING AREAS OF COOPERATION 
------------------------------ 
 
¶7.  (U) The MFAA-convened group suggested that 
Morocco respond to the President's invitation by 
identifying "low-hanging fruit:"  specific niches 
for cooperation that correspond to both the areas 
the President highlighted and Morocco's priority 
axes for research and development.  The group 
specified possibilities in agriculture, 
aeronautics, energy, health, phosphates, water and 
education.  The group identified Morocco's needs, 
including strengthening capacity in areas needed to 
bring research to market such as prototyping and 
venture capital, reinforcing the interactions 
between private enterprise and research, and 
building entrepreneurship and creation of 
innovation-driver small and medium enterprises. 
 
¶8.  (U) Potential areas of cooperation in 
agriculture include crop and seed development, 
particularly in relation to drought-resistant or 
low-water varieties, germplasm and gene-bank 
biodiversity conservation, pesticide and fertilizer 
development and management, as well as water 
management.  The group also diagnosed a gap in 
Moroccan researchers' understanding of the U.S. 
model of intellectual property protection in 
relation to plants.  Agricultural cooperation, the 
participants concluded, should also be aimed toward 
advancing food security and adapting to climate 
change.  USAID-funded training in agriculture and 
agronomy during the 1960s and 1970s enabled Morocco 
to establish university teaching and research 
departments that include a sizable percent of 
African students.  Renewed partnership with these 
programs (particularly as the original U.S.-trained 
scholars begin to retire) would be a means of 
promoting food security and a "green revolution for 
Africa."  The Embassy's Foreign Agricultural 
Service already plans to use U.S. Department of 
Agriculture exchange programs such as the Norman 
Borlaug Science and Technology Fellowship to 
provide technical assistance and capacity building 
to address climate change and food security. 
 
 
¶9.  (U) Morocco's growing aerospace sector provides 
another niche for U.S. cooperation, building on 
Moroccan research in materials sciences and 
nanotechnology.  Foreign direct investment in 
aeronautics firms has been growing for several 
years, and Moroccan companies in this sector have 
been working their way up the value chain. 
Participants believe that U.S. companies would 
benefit from increased cooperation and co- 
development of products and technologies with 
Moroccan companies. 
 
¶10.  (U) Morocco brings several advantages to 
energy collaboration.  It has recently concluded a 
long-term energy strategy that emphasizes renewable 
energy development, including the new USD 9 billion 
solar energy generation plan, as well as efforts 
currently under way to grow wind generation 
resources by over 2000 megawatts before 2020. 
Private companies and government-sponsored 
researchers are focusing on solar, wind and other 
technologies, including a strong emphasis on algal- 
derived biofuels in partnership with a DOE- 
supported U.S. company.  Morocco has some of the 
world's most promising resources for solar, wind 
and algal green energy development, and also shares 
challenges to these technologies with other 
developing and Muslim-majority countries, including 
water scarcity.  U.S. efforts to collaborate with 
Morocco will be met with willing partners, domestic 
investment and a strong potential to diffuse the 
benefits of partnership with other African and 
Muslim-majority nations. 
 
¶11.  (U) The working group participants highlighted 
previous studies that identify a financially viable 
niche for Moroccan health sciences in the area of 
medical diagnostics, particularly using stem cell 
technologies.  Moroccan health researchers benefit 
from long-standing international collaborations, 
including with the U.S., and participants were 
confident that U.S. biomedical/biotechnology firms 
would find profitable opportunities to partner with 
Moroccan researchers in these areas. 
 
¶12.  (U) Morocco's dominance in world phosphates 
reserves offers another potential area of 
collaboration.  Private and public-sector 
scientists already pursue wide-ranging research in 
phosphates.  This expertise includes ore processing 
and beneficiation, as well as chemistry research to 
optimize fertilizers and contribute to food 
security.  In addition, researchers study 
phosphates' non-conventional possibilities related 
to biomaterials as well as energy, such as uranium 
extraction from phosphate deposits, and the use of 
phosphate compounds in advanced electrochemical 
batteries. 
 
¶13.  (U) Morocco offers a fruitful field for water 
collaboration, presenting both the challenges of 
arid/desert regions and increasing dryness from 
climate change, and the advantage of experienced 
water resource managers and operators.  Moroccan 
agencies and institutions have a history of working 
and sharing expertise with other African water 
agencies, and the national water office has just 
opened an International Institute of Water to 
enhance this mission of diffusing know-how to 
water-stressed African countries.  The impact of 
U.S. cooperation with this institute or other water 
researchers will be multiplied by diffusion through 
Morocco to other developing nations. 
 
¶14.  (U) Finally, participants noted similar U.S. 
and Moroccan needs in education, particularly a 
deficiency in students pursuing studies in science, 
technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). 
 
The group suggested that U.S. and Moroccan 
researchers could collaborate on efforts to promote 
STEM study, as well as techniques to support STEM 
pedagogy.  Participants further highlighted common 
interest in leveraging technology to improve STEM 
instruction in rural areas (for example through 
distance learning to supplement local teachers' 
capabilities) and directed efforts to increase 
girls' participation and learning in these fields. 
 
----------------------------------------- 
NEED FOR URGENCY: WE'RE NOT THE ONLY ONES 
----------------------------------------- 
 
¶15.  (SBU) Comment:  This proposal, while 
emphasizing the positive aspects of Morocco's 
capabilities and prospects, tracks well with 
evaluations we have heard from visiting USG 
scientists, corporations and other experts in 
research and development.  Mission Morocco is eager 
to facilitate expanded science and technology 
cooperation with USG, academic and private sector 
partners to bring about the President's vision of 
partnership.  While our interlocutors have been 
universally enthusiastic about the prospect of 
increased cooperation in science and technology 
since the President's Cairo speech, some are 
warning that the U.S. needs to show concrete 
results soon to avoid disappointment from missed 
expectations.  In many ways, U.S influence in 
Morocco pales in comparison to that of the EU, 
given its proximity, market size, trade flows and 
the international presence of European countries 
and companies.  Morocco's historical and linguistic 
ties with France and Spain, mean that Moroccans 
often naturally incline to international 
collaboration with those countries, despite their 
deep respect for U.S. scientific and technological 
know-how. 
 
¶16.  (SBU) Comment Continued:  In addition, in some 
of the most promising areas for "win-win" 
collaboration, other countries are much more active 
than the U.S. at soliciting Moroccan partnership. 
For example, while Morocco is planning to spend up 
to USD 9 billion to build solar energy generation 
stations and has actively sought U.S. government 
and private sector interest in technology 
development and building, Germany has been much 
more active in outreach to researchers in the 
renewable energy sector, funding technical 
conferences and research exchanges to build 
relationships.  The Mission strongly recommends 
early outreach from the U.S. governmental and non- 
governmental science and technology community to 
forge collaborations and partnerships with the best 
Moroccan minds and institutions in these promising 
areas.  End Comment. 
 
KAPLAN