Interview with Moulay Abdelghani Abouhani, general director for urbanism, architecture territorial management for the ministry of habitat in Morocco.
The interview was done beside the Med in Italy forum held in Reggio Calabria, Italy, the 29 June 2011.
What do you think of this three days forum about sustainaible constuction?
These has been three very interesting days, very intense, and we dealt with topics that for us are very up to date and on which we are working because building sustainaible cities and houses is something that nowadays is at the heart of the policies of this sector. We are reviewing all our legal tools to integrate these dimensions of sustainability in the programs. We are working on a new urban planning code which integrates this dimension of sustainability. We are also creating new tools for more sustainable urban planning and we are also reviewing our building code to introduce this dimension of sustainability. The exchanges we have had, helped us a little for what we are trying to do.
What is the importance of Italy-Morocco cooperation?
I think you can recover and deepen cooperation with Italy at different levels. Above all you can deepen cooperation between ministers. The urban planning and habitat ministry of Morocco and the same ministry in Italy. I think this cooperation still needs to be developed. We are ready to expand the framework of this cooperation if Italy wants it. It is feasible to cooperate between urban agencies. We have a network of 25 urban agencies and I wish that it will be possible to cooperate with Italian agencies on sustainable urban planning. It is also possible to cooperate between regions. We are editing the act about regions. This is a major reform to expand region’s competencies. The Italian experience about this, is very interesting for us because we are trying to regionalise urban planning policies, construction policies and the Italian experience is very interesting. It is possible to cooperate between Chambers of Commerce and private operators. I think it is always possible to see different domains. But now we need to be pragmatic. We are very interested to cooperate with our Italian partners.
Interview by Piervincenzo Canale
Special thanks to interpreter Vincenzo Bonfiglio.
Did you find this information helpful? If you did, consider donating.