French-Moroccan space cooperation CNES and Morocco’s space institutions commence cooperation
Following on from the framework agreement signed on 28 May in Paris in the presence of the French and Moroccan prime ministers, CNES, CRTS and CRERS met in Rabat on 28-29 September to define the cooperation actions they envision. The meeting covered a range of topics, all of them related to sustainable development issues and the forthcoming COP21 climate conference, including agriculture, water, oceanography and disaster management.
Discussions also focused on skills building, notably the opportunity for Moroccan engineers and research scientists to attend training in space technologies and participate in CNES’s Technical Expertise Communities (CCTs).
The Moroccan partners also underlined space education and outreach for young people as top priorities of future cooperation. Morocco could thus also benefit from the full range of programmes and tools offered by CNES and the Planète-Sciences non-profit association focused on STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) education.
After the two days of talks, Jean-Yves Le Gall met in Rabat with the directors of CRTS, Driss El Hadani, and CRERS, Zakaria Moudden, to review progress on planned future cooperation initiatives between the two nations. He then pursued discussions on French-Moroccan cooperation with France’s Ambassador to Morocco, Jean-François Girault.
On this occasion, Jean-Yves Le Gall commented: “The discussions that CNES’s team had this week with our Moroccan partners were most constructive. The scientific and engineering topics covered show our nations’ strong desire to work together in concrete fashion on the key issues that will be on the agenda at the COP 21 climate conference.”
_____
Contacts
Pascale Bresson Tel. +33 (0)1 44 76 75 39 pascale.bresson@cnes.fr
Alain Delrieu Tel. +33 (0)1 44 76 74 04 alain.delrieu@cnes.fr
Julien Watelet Tel. +33 (0)1 44 76 78 37 julien.watelet@cnes.fr
cp180-2015_-_maroc_va.pdf (pdf - 242.94 KB)
