FOM Newsletter August 2002
Morocco Week in Review August 17, 2002  August 17, 2002 

One Moroccan out of five lives in poverty, the center of Demographic Studies and Researches (CERD) said in its 2001 National Report on Population Policy. The report entitled "Poverty fighting: assessment and perspectives" comprises several indicators on the evolution of poverty in Morocco and the poorest social layers. Poverty in Morocco went up from 13.1% in 1990 to 19% in 1999. The number of poor persons went up from 4.6 millions in 1985 to 5.3 millions in 1998, the document said, adding that the rise is due to several factors such as successive years of drought and higher unemployment rates in cities in the nineties. The social categories most affected by poverty, the study goes on, are the families with many children, women-headed households and living in shanty towns and families with no steady income. Poverty persists in rural areas due to the wide gap between these areas and cities in terms of development, the CERD goes on, adding that the rural population, which makes up to 46.6% of the overall population, represents65.80% of the poor. In the countryside, poverty affects 27.2% (3 out of 10) while in the cities, the rate is of 12% (1 out of 10). The survey stresses the necessity for social programs to provide for local policies to generate jobs for the poor, to promote subsistence agriculture, and to back profit-generating activities in cities.

Leading experts and members of civil society organizations from the Arab world met earlier this month in Casablanca, Morocco, to discuss critical impediments to women's citizenship in the region and ways to overcome them. They focused on three areas where women are unable to claim their full rights as citizens: voting and nationality, family laws, and social security legislation and practices. The UNDP Regional Bureau for Arab States (RBAS) and Maroc2020, a leading Moroccan civil society group, co-sponsored the event.  

A startling concern raised by participants is that in all Arab countries with the exception of Tunisia, women cannot pass on their nationality to their children, which violates one of the basic rights of citizenship. Children of women married to foreigners are thus denied citizenship, even if they live all their lives in their country of birth. This creates a generation of children with no sense of belonging who encounter a host of hardships in attempting to gain access to schools, housing and medical facilities, and sometimes face the threat of deportation. In some countries, such as Kuwait and Yemen, the law stipulates that women can get married only with the consent of a male guardian. In Egypt, almost 60 per cent of women do not have identity cards, which sharply curtails their rights. Without an identity card a woman cannot work in the formal sector, vote, apply for social security benefits nor register a complaint with the police if her husband assaults her.  

Participants brainstormed on strategies to help women gain full rights as citizens. They cited the importance of using non-governmental organizations as partners to promote policy debates, the vital need for action-based research, and the importance of raising awareness and educating the media. "A common theme is the importance of research for informing policy dialogue and debunking the many myths - including religious myths -- that surround many of these issues," pointed out Su'ad Joseph, professor at the University of California Davis. For example, discriminatory nationality laws are based on French and British codes of the 19th Century and not on Islamic Sharia Law as is commonly believed and argued, he noted. The concept of citizenship is a useful framework for discussing women's issues because "it allows us to raise fundamental questions about the nature of government and politics in Arab world," said Heba El-Kholy, coordinator of the UNDP gender and citizenship initiative. "It enables us to better understand the risks and challenges in addressing gender inequality," added Ms. El-Kholy. "It is not by accident that the most heated debates in the Arab world center on gender and women's integration into public life, and this framework can serve as a very strong base to advocate for action and policy changes." She pointed out that Arab governments increasingly talk in terms of the mouwaten, or citizen, rather than reayaa, subjects, and civil society groups have been able to use the concept of citizenship successfully to promote women's rights at the national level.  

The workshop is part of a UNDP initiative on governance reform in the Arab world. "Mainstreaming gender in all of our activities is one of the most important aspects of our work," said Adel Abdel Latif, regional coordinator of the Governance Programme in Arab States. Also, the UNDP- sponsored Arab Human Development Report, released last month, highlights the lack of women's empowerment, together with political freedom and knowledge, as a major deficiency in the Arab world. The meeting identified key elements for a regional project on gender and citizenship, focusing on nationality laws and civil registration procedures, that RBAS will carry out in partnership with the International Development Research Center of Canada and civil society groups from the region.

CASABLANCA, Aug.22 - The Forum of Moroccan third Millennium Youth is currently holding here its third festival on the theme "Initiative and solidarity." The five-day event features round tables and workshops on the concerns and aspirations of the Moroccan youth, in addition to artistic, cultural and social activities. Some 1000 young representing all the regions of the country are taking part in the event, alongside young entrepreneurs from France, Belgium, Spain, Algeria, Egypt, Mauritania, Palestine and Senegal. The event, to wind up Friday, falls within preparations for the International Congress of the Third Millennium Youth to be held in Morocco in 2003.  Morocco is ready to host the event, said Moroccan minister of social economy, SMEs and handicraft, Ahmed Lahlimi, who was taking part in a workshop on enterprises' creation. The congress will be an occasion for young Moroccans to explain their concerns as to environment, culture, tolerance and peace issues, and their rejection of all forms of violence and tension between peoples, the minister went on.  Some of the meetings and round tables dealt with the contribution of the outh in the management of public affairs and their experiences in the field of enterprise creation.

The new extension of the Asilah-Sidi El-Yamani Highway is now open for traffic. The 15 kilometer freeway linking Rabat to Tangier cost 440 million Moroccan dirhams ($41 million) to complete, reported the North African Journal. The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) financed 86 percent of the new highway and the remaining 14 percent was funded by Morocco's Societe Nationale des autoroutes du Maroc. IDB consists of 53 member-countries, with each country being a member of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The purpose of the Bank is to foster the economic development and social progress of member countries and Muslim communities individually as well as jointly in accordance with the principles of Shari'ah Law. - (menareport.com)

A lone Moroccan survivor told Algerian sailors how 26 of his colleagues had died while trying to cross the Mediterranean in a small inflatable craft, Algeria's APS news agency reported Sunday. The man was picked up on Saturday morning about 20 nautical miles north of the Habibas islands off Algeria's western coast, a naval spokesman said. He was later taken to a hospital in Bouzedjar in critical condition by Algerian coastguards. The APS reports did not say how the 26 had drowned or how the man had managed to survive alone on the craft over a number of days. (Albawaba.com)

Morocco exported 430,000 tons of citrus fruit in the first half of 2002, of which clementines accounted for 28 percent of the total. These figures translate into 10 percent export increase compared to the same period last year, reported the North Africa Journal. Tomato exports also increased during the same period reaching 205,000 tons, a 10 percent increase compare to figures from the first half of 2001. The increase in agricultural exports helped the nation's trade deficit shrink by 26 percent in the first quarter of 2002, reaching 7.4 billion Moroccan dirhams ($668 million).

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