Gambia officially opened its General Consulate in the Moroccan southern city of Dakhla on Tuesday, January 7 2020, thus becoming the third African country to establish its consulate in morocco’s Southern Provinces.
This decision comes as a testament to Banjul’s steady support for Morocco’s territorial integrity and sovereignty over the Sahara as it indicates the growing interest accorded by African countries to the strengthening of South-South cooperation. This dynamic is reinforced by the progress made at all the levels and the structuring development projects in this region, driven by the important investments, as evidenced by the New Development Model in the Sahara launched in 2015.
The privileged relations between Rabat and Banjul open themselves to broader perspectives of cooperation following Gambia’s sovereign decision to open its consulate General in Dakhala. This initiative, which fully copes with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (1963), allows the two countries to further explore news investment opportunities to promote growth and job creation. Indeed some 300 projects will be launched this year 2020, in the frame of the “Southern Provinces Development Programme” covering the 2016-2021 period, with an overall budget of 24 billion Dirhams.
Today it is no doubt that Dakhla, as Gateway to Africa, is set to become an economic capital of West Africa by increasing and confirming its position as a model of socio-economic development that could contribute to the progress and the development of the African cities.
Several African sister countries have many of their nationals settled in the Moroccan Sahara cities where they are perfectly integrated. The policy initiated by His Majesty the King Mohammed VI on migration and asylum, is internationally applauded, came to reinforce the existing tools implemented by morocco to facilitate the integration of our African brothers.
During this year, other countries will make the same step as the Union of the Comoros and Gambia. The countries that have opened Consulates in the Moroccan Sahara are driven by the twofold willingness to develop their bilateral relations with the Kingdom of Morocco as well as to ensure consular services for their nationals residing in the Moroccan Sahara;
The opening of these consular posts in the Moroccan Sahara constitutes a recognition and an appreciation of the African Vision of His Majesty the King for a continent enlivened by a strong inter-African cooperation as well as a strong testimony to security and stability in the Kingdom’s Southern Provinces in a tumultuous regional context.