11.10.2017
Energised: jobs with a future in Morocco
Young Moroccans are being trained at vocational centres to become energy technicians. This not only improves their career prospects – it also helps drive the country’s transition to clean energy.
Morocco has ambitious energy plans: the North African country aims to generate half of the electricity it needs from solar, wind and biomass by 2030. But skilled workers familiar with these new technologies are in short supply. At the same time, over 20 per cent of all young people are unemployed. Now help is at hand in the form of vocational training centres focused on renewable energy.
The first of three planned centres is in Oujda in the northeast of the country. It is currently the largest vocational training centre in the field of renewable energy in the whole of Africa. Each year the centre provides training for 120 students in five disciplines. During their courses, the future energy experts develop close links with the energy sector, which is responsible for running the centre. The first class – almost half of whom were women – graduated in mid-2017 and all now have a job in prospect.
The centres are part of the German Climate Technology Initiative, which is financed by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH supported the technical development of the first centre in Morocco on behalf of the two ministries.
GIZ also developed the centre’s curricula in collaboration with experts from the Moroccan and European private sector. This means that the skills the trainees acquire are those needed by businesses on the labour market. GIZ is also responsible for advanced technical and pedagogical training for teaching staff. In addition, it conducts a broad range of training measures for companies in the Moroccan energy sector.
These Moroccan vocational training centres are just one example of the many projects GIZ is implementing around the world to provide young people with professional opportunities. Together with its partners, GIZ reached over 1.3 million trainees between 2010 and 2015. In North Africa and the Middle East alone, almost half a million people have found a job with the help of the company.