H2O Maghreb is pleased to have had the opportunity to participate in a number of conferences, workshops, and official high-level visits over the past year, which has allowed the project to share best practices and lessons learned with a wide-range of international actors from both private and public sectors. In July 2019, USAID/Morocco delivered a presentation of the project to the U.S. Congressional Virtual Reality Group in Washington D.C. H2O Maghreb was presented as a model for the Agency to follow in using virtual reality technology to improve the quality of technical training programs. The success of H2O Maghreb has merited visits by high-level officials from USAID travelling to Morocco. Among these included visits by Andrew Plitt, USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Middle East in October 2019 and Chris Milligan, Counselor to USAID in January 2020, who each had the chance to tour the International Institute of Water and Sanitation (IEA) at ONEE and the training space used by H2O Maghreb, where they met with program trainees and trainers. Both Mr. Pitt and Mr. Milligan were highly enthusiastic about the project and greatly appreciated their visits to the H2O Maghreb facilities.

Figure 1: USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Middle East Andrew Plitt (Left) visits the H2O Maghreb training facilities in Rabat, Morocco accompanied by Mr. Abderrafi Mardi, Coordinator at the IEA at ONEE (Right)

Figure 2: USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Middle East Andrew Plitt tests out the Aquatronics Virtual Reality technology alongside Mr. Abderrafi Mardi, Coordinator at the IEA at ONEE  during a recent visit of the H2O Maghreb facilities in Rabat, Morocco.