Think Forward.

The Africa Atlantic Gas Pipeline: A Strategic Project at the Heart of Regional Rivalriy. 4911

Aziz Daouda, 2 mon.
While Algerian media persist in disparaging the Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline project, also known as the Atlantic Africa Gas Pipeline (AAGP), this large-scale transcontinental megaproject paradoxically generates growing interest and increasing international support. More than just a pipeline, the AAGP embodies an ambitious vision of South-South cooperation, regional integration, and sustainable development, crossing often landlocked and fragile countries, and offering a credible complement or alternative source of gas for Europe. The AAGP aims to transport up to 30 billion cubic meters of gas per year from Nigeria’s rich gas fields, passing through about fifteen West African countries, reaching Morocco, and then onward to Europe via the Strait of Gibraltar. This significant capacity will not only diversify Europe’s energy supply sources but, above all, meet the growing energy needs of West African countries. Unlike the Algerian Trans-Saharan gas pipeline project, which is about 1,500 km shorter but costly (nearly USD 20 billion) and passes through an unstable region, the AAGP stands out for its inclusive approach. It is not merely a transit conduit to Europe but a regional energy network that will supply bordering countries, allowing producers to inject their gas locally and others to fuel their industrial, agricultural, and urban development. The AAGP is based on a logic of South-South cooperation, founded on solidarity, sharing expertise, and economic complementarity. By crossing often landlocked countries, the pipeline will help reduce their energy isolation, strengthen their infrastructure, and stimulate their economic growth. The choice of a predominantly offshore route up to Dakhla, then onshore along Morocco’s Atlantic coast, illustrates the desire to fully integrate the Sahel-Saharan region into a modern energy corridor. Dakhla, which will become a major port, industrial, and logistics hub, is set to play a central role in this dynamic, promoting job creation, industrial growth, and economic diversification-key strengths and major assets of the Moroccan vision. Algeria, for its part, perceives it as a direct threat to its dominant position in the regional energy sector. Its shorter Trans-Saharan pipeline project is limited to a simple transit role for Nigerian gas to Europe, without real impact on the development of the territories it crosses. In contrast, the Moroccan AAGP proposes a more ambitious vision, integrating a regional network that will benefit all partners and their increasingly demanding populations. Algerian hostility manifests in an intense media campaign aimed at downplaying the feasibility of the Moroccan project. Beyond the media, Algeria is multiplying diplomatic efforts to strengthen ties with Nigeria and accelerate its own project. Official delegations follow one another, while on social networks, relentless, likely orchestrated smear campaigns seek to discredit the AAGP. This antagonism fits into a broader political logic, with Morocco as the "classic enemy" to weaken. Ideological stubbornness leads to ridiculous choices that paradoxically harm Algeria’s own economic and social interests. The artificial conflict over Western Sahara remains a backdrop; the survival of the Polisario Front has mobilized a large share of Algeria’s resources, efforts, and attention for 50 years. Contrary to Algerian claims, the AAGP enjoys solid support from financial institutions and major investors. The United Arab Emirates (25 billion USD), the Islamic Development Bank, the European Investment Bank, the OPEC Fund for International Development, as well as the USA, have expressed interest and commitment to the project. On the industrial front, the Chinese group Jingye Steel has already won the contract to supply the metal pipes, demonstrating the project’s international and industrial dimension. This involvement of global players strengthens the technical and financial credibility of the AAGP and consolidates adherence to the goal of making the region a development hub rather than a source of migration and forced population displacements. The Moroccan project is divided into several phases, with feasibility, basic engineering, and environmental studies already completed or underway. A call for tenders is planned to accelerate construction, with the commissioning of the first sections envisaged as early as 2029. Beyond energy issues, the AAGP is part of a broader strategy of sustainable development, reducing energy poverty and poverty in general, and strengthening regional stability. By promoting economic integration and complementarity among West African countries, the project will help create an environment conducive to investment, job creation, inclusive growth, and prosperity. This was recently reinforced in the PRAI declaration at the 5th meeting of the African Atlantic States Process (AASP). This approach strongly contrasts with Algeria’s strategy, which remains focused on political and ideological confrontation, to the detriment of economic and social opportunities for its own populations. Algeria even refuses to acknowledge the emergence of new gas producers, notably Senegal and Mauritania, who actively participate in the Moroccan project. These countries adopt a pragmatic logic, favoring economic development and regional cooperation over ideological rivalries. The first section of the AAGP precisely includes these states, illustrating a dynamic of openness and partnership that could reshape West Africa’s energy map. The Atlantic Africa Gas Pipeline is more than just an infrastructure project: it embodies an ambitious vision of cooperation, integration, and sustainable development for West Africa that the affected populations fully understand. Faced with this dynamic, Algeria seems trapped in its chronic confrontational stance, hindering its own development and, regrettably, that of the region. At a time when energy, economic, and geopolitical challenges are multiplying, the AAGP is a model for the future, based on complementarity, solidarity, and innovation. Its success could open the way to a new era of shared prosperity and stability for West Africa and its international partners, much to the dismay of those who oppose it, refuse to admit it, or simply fail to understand it.
Aziz Daouda

Aziz Daouda

Directeur Technique et du Développement de la Confédération Africaine d'Athlétisme. Passionné du Maroc, passionné d'Afrique. Concerné par ce qui se passe, formulant mon point de vue quand j'en ai un. Humaniste, j'essaye de l'être, humain je veux l'être. Mon histoire est intimement liée à l'athlétisme marocain et mondial. J'ai eu le privilège de participer à la gloire de mon pays .


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THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER - PREFACE 2081

Bluwr X Commons: Mark Twain, 2 y.
1 min read.
Most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred; one or two were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were schoolmates of mine. Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, but not from an individual—he is a combination of the characteristics of three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of architecture. The odd superstitions touched upon were all prevalent among children and slaves in the West at the period of this story—that is to say, thirty or forty years ago. Although my book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account, for part of my plan has been to try to pleasantly remind adults of what they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in. THE AUTHOR. HARTFORD, 1876.

THE MEDITATIONS - Book I.[1/3] 2128

Bluwr X Commons: Marcus Aurelius, 2 y.
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4 min read.
1. I learned from my grandfather, Verus, to use good manners, and to put restraint on anger. 2. In the famous memory of my father I had a pattern of modesty and manliness. 3. Of my mother I learned to be pious and generous; to keep myself not only from evil deeds, but even from evil thoughts; and to live with a simplicity which is far from customary among the rich. 4. I owe it to my great-grandfather that I did not attend public lectures and discussions, but had good and able teachers at home; and I owe him also the knowledge that for things of this nature a man should count no expense too great. 5. My tutor taught me not to favour either green or blue at the chariot races, nor, in the contests of gladiators, to be a supporter either of light or heavy armed. He taught me also to endure labour; not to need many things; to serve myself without troubling others; not to intermeddle in the affairs of others, and not easily to listen to slanders against them. 6. Of Diognetus I had the lesson not to busy myself about vain things; not to credit the great professions of such as pretend to work wonders, or of sorcerers about their charms, and their expelling of Demons and the like; not to keep quails (for fighting or divination), nor to run after such things; to suffer freedom of speech in others, and to apply myself heartily to philosophy. Him also I must thank for my hearing first Bacchius, then Tandasis and Marcianus; that I wrote dialogues in my youth, and took a liking to the philosopher’s pallet and skins, and to the other things which, by the Grecian discipline, belong to that profession. 7. To Rusticus I owe my first apprehensions that my nature needed reform and cure; and that I did not fall into the ambition of the common Sophists, either by composing speculative writings or by declaiming harangues of exhortation in public; further, that I never strove to be admired by ostentation of great patience in an ascetic life, or by display of activity and application; that I gave over the study of rhetoric, poetry, and the graces of language; and that I did not pace my house in my senatorial robes, or practise any similar affectation. I observed also the simplicity of style in his letters, particularly in that which he wrote to my mother from Sinuessa. I learned from him to be easily appeased, and to be readily reconciled with those who had displeased me or given cause of offence, so soon as they inclined to make their peace; to read with care; not to rest satisfied with a slight and superficial knowledge; nor quickly to assent to great talkers. I have him to thank that I met with the discourses of Epictetus, which he furnished me from his own library. 8. From Apollonius I learned true liberty, and tenacity of purpose; to regard nothing else, even in the smallest degree, but reason always; and always to remain unaltered in the agonies of pain, in the losses of children, or in long diseases. He afforded me a living example of how the same man can, upon occasion, be most yielding and most inflexible. He was patient in exposition; and, as might well be seen, esteemed his fine skill and ability in teaching others the principles of philosophy as the least of his endowments. It was from him that I learned how to receive from friends what are thought favours without seeming humbled by the giver or insensible to the gift. 9. Sextus was my pattern of a benign temper, and his family the model of a household governed by true paternal affection, and a steadfast purpose of living according to nature. Here I could learn to be grave without affectation, to observe sagaciously the several dispositions and inclinations of my friends, to tolerate the ignorant and those who follow current opinions without examination. His conversation showed how a man may accommodate himself to all men and to all companies; for though companionship with him was sweeter and more pleasing than any sort of flattery, yet he was at the same time highly respected and reverenced. No man was ever more happy than he in comprehending, finding out, and arranging in exact order the great maxims necessary for the conduct of life. His example taught me to suppress even the least appearance of anger or any other passion; but still, with all this perfect tranquillity, to possess the tenderest and most affectionate heart; to be apt to approve others yet without noise; to have much learning and little ostentation. 10. I learned from Alexander the Grammarian to avoid censuring others, to refrain from flouting them for a barbarism, solecism, or any false pronunciation. Rather was I dexterously to pronounce the words rightly in my answer, confining approval or objection to the matter itself, and avoiding discussion of the expression, or to use some other form of courteous suggestion. 11. Fronto made me sensible how much of envy, deceit and hypocrisy surrounds princes; and that generally those whom we account nobly born have somehow less natural affection. 12. I learned from Alexander the Platonist not often nor without great necessity to say, or write to any man in a letter, that I am not at leisure; nor thus, under pretext of urgent affairs, to make a practice of excusing myself from the duties which, according to our various ties, we owe to those with whom we live. 13. Of Catulus I learned not to condemn any friend’s expostulation even though it were unjust, but to try to recall him to his former disposition; to stint no praise in speaking of my masters, as is recounted of Domitius and Athenodorus; and to love my children with true affection. 14. Of Severus, my brother, I learned to love my kinsmen, to love truth, to love justice. Through him I came to know Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dion, and Brutus. He gave me my first conception of a Commonwealth founded upon equitable laws and administered with equality of right; and of a Monarchy whose chief concern is the freedom of its subjects. Of him I learned likewise a constant and harmonious devotion to Philosophy; to be ready to do good, to be generous with all my heart. He taught me to be of good hope and trustful of the affection of my friends. I observed in him candour in declaring what he condemned in the conduct of others; and so frank and open was his behaviour, that his friends might easily see without the trouble of conjecture what he liked or disliked.