Morocco’s bold play at renewing their energy blend

As the winds of change blow through the MENA region, Morocco is pushing to harvest the energy of the sun and the wind. At a time when Western attempts at making renewable energy a success are only producing negative headlines (example here & here) Morocco is playing the hand it was dealt.

As the only country in North Africa that does not have oil resources, Morocco must import 95% of its energy. In 2009, Morocco spent $7.3 billion on fuel and electricity imports, and the demand is set to quadruple by 2030. This has left Morocco with a strong set of incentives to aggressively expand its renewable energy capacity, and the government set an ambitious goal of 42% of energy to come from renewable sources by 2020. That’s more than double the commitment made by the more traditional climate-friendly European countries.

Injaz- Not Just a Cloned Camel

Tour of the Middle East- Part 2: Bahrain and the UAE

–          This series of posts will take you on a country by country tour of the Middle East, showing how economic and social development occurs in one of the most unstable regions in the world.

Google ‘Injaz’ and one might become confused.  Some search results will show how Injaz refers to an elite, cloned racing camel that helps to fuel a lucrative camel racing business.  Other results will bring you to Injaz al-Arab, an organization that works among 12 Middle East & North Africa (MENA) countries to encourage and educate the Arab youth to become successful in the fields of business and entrepreneurship. For this blog’s  purpose, we will focus on the latter of these two quite opposing Google search results.

GE Volunteers at an Injaz al-Arab Camp

Injaz al-Arab was initiated in 2004, five years after the success of Injaz in Jordan was established.  Corporate sponsors including ExxonMobil, Intel, and GE are partnering with Injaz al-Arab in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to bring quality education to areas of society in both countries that need it the most.  The main form of help being offered is volunteering, with over 10,000 corporate volunteers participating across the MENA Injaz coalition.  Through training, mentoring, and guidance, teachers are being taught the skills by these volunteers to better the education of their students.