Virtual Magazine of Morocco on the Web
Morocco Week in Review 
April 23 2005

Moroccan economic growth 'insufficient' for job opportunities, WB official.
Morocco's GDP 'under-evaluated', official.
Over 9,000 km of rural roads built in 2004.
David Welch, US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs ''Morocco is a model for countries in the region''.
Ain Chock Charity House scandal sparks probe 
Traditions: Ardent for Argan.

Moroccan economic growth 'insufficient' for job opportunities, WB official.
Washington, Apr. 19 - The economic growth rate in Morocco, which is situated at 4%, and the structural reforms the country carries out are 'insufficient' to create new job opportunities, said here Tuesday the World Bank Chief Economist for the Middle East and North Africa Region.

Mustapha Kamel Nabli said a growth rate of 6 or 7% is necessary for Morocco to counter the problem of unemployment, affirming that this is contingent upon "forwarding and deepening" the reforms program to foster a business climate and attract further private investments.

The WB official said cooperation relations between the international institution and Morocco are "active and positive." He noted that, besides the forms of assistance the Bank offers to Morocco in many a field, the WB is now drafting a report on the program (Country Assistance Strategy), which sets up the collaboration framework with Morocco for the next four years.
The Moroccan Finance and Privatization Minister, Fathallah Oualalou, had requested, in his meeting with WB Vice-President Christian Poortman, that this program take into consideration the achievements of Morocco in keeping the macroeconomic balance and pursuing structural reforms at the political, economic and social levels.

Nabli was speaking to MAP on the sidelines of the presentation of the WB annual report on "2005 Economic Evolution and Perspectives in the Middle East and North Africa", which points out that the economic growth rate in the region stood at 5.6% against 3.6% in the 1990s, due essentially to the upsurge in oil prices. The report says that this growth rate remains insufficient for creating some 100 million job opportunities in the next 20 years to absorb the newcomers in the job market.
http://www.map.ma/eng/sections/imp_economy/moroccan_economic_gr/view 
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Morocco's GDP 'under-evaluated', official.
Rabat, Apr.19

Morocco's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is "under-evaluated" because informal economy is not included in accounting, said the Vice President of the Federation of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises. In an interview with the Moroccan daily "Aujourd'hui le Maroc", Abdelmalek Kettani ascribed the weakness of Morocco's GDP, compared to other non-oil producing countries, to "the importance of different informal markets which generate huge monies that skip the national accounting system". According to Kettani, settling the problem requires the gradual dismantling of this economy, which will not only clear up the vision, but also encourage investment in some fields weakened by smuggling.
http://www.map.ma/eng/sections/economy/morocco_s_gdp__under/view 
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Over 9,000 km of rural roads built in 2004.
Rabat, Apr.19

Morocco extended rural roads network to reach 9,276 km in 2004, said the Ministry of Equipment and Transports.
Up to December, Morocco built 5,209 km and revamped 4,067 km of rural roads as part of the National Program of Rural Roads (PNRR). The ministry noted that 8,755 km are already operational. Created in 1995, PNRR aims at opening up to rural populations by extending the rural roads network to reach 10,044 km.
http://www.map.ma/eng/sections/economy/over_9000_km_of_rur/view 
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David Welch, US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs ''Morocco is a model for countries in the region''.

"Morocco is realizing interesting projects that bring high hopes to Moroccans and make the country a model to follow for countries in the region, each according to its traditions and priorities," said on Monday American Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, David Welch. The US official made this statement at the end of a meeting with Moroccan Prime Minister Driss Jettou with whom he discussed the two countries' foreign policies and issues of common interest.

Morocco and the United States share several interests and goals, said the US official, who is paying his first official visit abroad since his appointment on March 18. Talks between Jettou and Welsh also touched on the Free Trade Agreement which Rabat and Washington signed on June 15, 2004. The two officials highlighted the need to materialize the provisions of the agreement that eliminates tariffs on 95 % of all bilateral trade between the United States and Morocco, and includes stringent protections for intellectual property and the environment.

They said it was important to set up accompanying measures for sectors that could encounter difficulties in relation to the agreement, as well as for economic operators of the two countries. The two officials also discussed social and economic projects that benefit from funding granted, as part of the Millennium Challenge Account development program.

Morocco qualified in 2004 for the US Millennium Challenge Account, based on its progress in governing justly, investing in its citizens and ensuring economic freedom, as measured against criteria established and monitored by independent organizations. It was the only country in the Broader Middle East and North Africa to become eligible.

Jettou emphasized at the meeting the reforms brought in by Morocco, underlining that his country clings addresses stability in the Maghreb and to the erection of a strong and united regional grouping. He was referring to the Maghreb Arab Union (known by its French acronym UMA) which, since its establishment in 1989, encountered several difficulties because of political differences between member states. UMA countries are Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania.
http://www.moroccotimes.com/paper/article.asp?idr=2&id=5818 
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Ain Chock Charity House scandal sparks probe 250 charities to be audited to end funds mismanagement MAD 14 million to improve living conditions in charitable institutions.
By Karima Rhanem

Abderahim Harouchi, Minister of Social Development, Family and Solidarity, announced on Wednesday that a ministerial committee has been created, following the King's instructions, to audit the country's charities and to work on a bill that would restructure the work of social institutions in Morocco. Harouchi told reporters that the previous law of social institutions was too general and did not cover the special situation of Charity Houses.

"This led to the tragedy that Moroccans have seen on TV screens, during King Mohammed VI's surprising visit to the Ain Chock Charity House a fortnight ago," said the Minister. He stressed that the causes of this tragedy were mainly related to the bad management and the laissez-faire policy, which characterized the work of the Ain Chock Charity House - said to be the largest orphanage in the Arab world and Africa.

Harouchi said that the Accountably Office will audit 250 charities to end the mismanagement of funds, stating that the government has allocated MAD 14 million to improve living conditions in charitable institutions.

The minister pointed out that a new interim committee is currently leading the Ain Chock Charity House, after its former members had been accused of corruption, embezzlement and forgery. The Casablanca judicial police said earlier last week that Mohammed El Kassi, the Ain Chock House's director, his assistant, the treasurer and seven others were being held in custody and would appear soon before the judge. Their properties, including that of their families (wives and children), and their bank accounts have been seized.

The 700 residents of the Ain Chock Islamic Charity House in Casablanca have endured harsh living conditions for years, until the visit of HM King Mohammed VI who rescued them from the piggy life they were living. The Charity House lacks sanitary facilities, health services and drinking water. The bathrooms, showers, kitchen and dormitories became home for cockroaches, mice and several insects. The House residents were starving. Some of them were forced to go out to sell vegetables and cigarettes in local "souks" to earn a living to survive.

Shattered dreams, lack of hope, and desperation. These are the characteristics of their daily lives. Many of the residents, most of whom are students decided to flee hell and got on deadly pateras to cross the other side of the Atlantic - mainly to Spain - seeking a "heavenly life". One of the House's rooms has pictures on the wall of those who managed to immigrate clandestinely to Europe.

The probe is reviewing the House's annual government aid and its expenses. Morocco Times got a copy of an official document of the Charity House, which reveals its 2002 revenues. The association received a total of MAD 8.2 million in 2002. The document also shows the House's name as a corporation instead of an association. Last year, the association received MAD 10 million. The Ministry of Justice had also granted the institution MAD 800,000.

The scandal has sparked outrage among Moroccans, many of whom demanded a severe trial for all those implicated in this scandal.
Another charity house director was dismissed from his job, but was not legally sued for any embezzlement. A new interim director, Abdeladim Horaira, was appointed at the Tit Mellil Charity House. Assabah, a Moroccan Arabic daily, called the association "a rubbish can for humans" in its one full- page report, which explained the inhuman conditions and the hardship endured by its residents.

Assabah also reported on Friday on the case of another Charity House in the city of Mohammedia, where its residents were forced to beg in the streets to ensure their daily meals. The Charity House's kitchen was closed, but its director claimed that the kitchen was being repaired. A human right official who visited the Charity House reported the inhuman conditions of its 70 residents. "It is high time that the Moroccan government puts fighting corruption and embezzlement high on its agenda. Without transparency, Morocco cannot progress," claimed a Moroccan civil rights activist.
http://www.moroccotimes.com/paper/article.asp?idr=11&id=5675 
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Traditions: Ardent for Argan.
By Kitty Morse

"Viens voir mes chèvres!" ("Come and see my goats!") calls a shepherd boy to camera-toting tourists as they scramble down the steps of a brightly painted bus. For a few coins, he allows the photographers to click away to their heart's content. Their subject: a score of nimble black goats perched meters of the ground among the gnarled limbs of a spiny argan tree. Goats have long foraged in the parched landscape of the Souss plain in southwestern Morocco. Whenever edible plants are in short supply on the ground, the ruminants have learned to look - and climb - up to the leaves and olive-like drupes, or fruits, of the argan tree (Argania spinosa; also called "Moroccan ironwood").

The local economy depends on the fruit of this endemic tree, which yields a prized and healthful oil rich in vitamins A and E and unsaturated fatty acids. With a lifespan of two centuries or more, the argan tree is of such value to the indigenous Berbers of the region that trees are often specifically included in legal lists of the assets of an estate.

The argan tree's economic importance motivated Zoubida Charrouf, a chemist and researcher at Rabat's Mohamed V University, to select Argania spinosa as the subject of her doctoral dissertation in 1984. She and her colleagues found that over the previous 20 years, the argan forest's density had shrunk from 100 trees per hectare to only 30 - that is, from 40 per acre to 12. The leathery-leafed botanical survivor from the Tertiary Epoch seemed headed for extinction. A severe drought that coincided with a dramatic increase in the region's human population had led to overgrazing by both goats and camels, and thus to an upset of the region's delicate ecosystem, in which the argan tree was a keystone species. Scientists predicted that this unique forest of more than 800,000 hectares (3088 sq mi) would shrink by as much as 40 percent by 2008. This would lead to diminished harvests and would probably spur the migration of rural families to already overcrowded cities.

The researchers joined with local officials to persuade the government to declare two percent of the argan forest off-limits to grazing. In 1998 UNESCO took up the cause and declared part of the argan forest - including the 54,000-hectare (208-sq mi) Souss-Massa National Park - an international Biosphere Reserve.

"Over two million people make their living directly or indirectly from the Argania spinosa. We had to motivate farmers to remain on the land, says Charrouf. One of the obvious ways was to build upon existing tradition and increase the scale of commercial production of argan oil. Since women are the keepers of tradition, the ones who have the ancestral know-how for producing argan oil, it seemed logical to turn to them first. Thus the idea of founding a women's cooperative. "

It took three yers of lobbying to secure approval from national and local authorities to make Cooperative Amal ("hope") a reality. In 1999, it opened in the village of Tamanar, 100 kilometers (62 mi) north of the cosmopolitan resort city of Agadir. It was the first establishment of its kind in Morocco.

The cooperative's beginnings were less than auspicious for Charrouf and her financial backers, who included Moroccan businesssmen, the British Consulate and Canada's Centre de Recherches pour le Développement International. Local officials were sceptical of the all-women enterprise. And Berber men were reluctant to let their wives work outside the home. For this reason, the cooperative's founding membership was composed almost exclusively of widows and divorced women. But as drought and economic pressure continued and the cooperative began to prove its value, many unemployed husbands came to count on their wives' membership as a source of steady income for their families.

"A cooperative is often the driving force behind other improvements within a community - improvements to its infrastructure, healthcare delivery and schools," says Charrouf. "For this reason, some caids [governors] who originally opposed cooperatives in their districts now encourage their development"

In the beginning, Charrouf, Cooperative Amal's manager, Khddija Rhalimi, and its elected president, Amina Edelcadi, faced what might diplomatically be called "a marketing challenge" to the international acceptance of argan oil:
for centuries, farmers had gathered the argan nuts not directly from the trees, but from the ground, where they had been either expectorated or excreted by arboreal goats who had eaten the fleshy fruit. Charrouf is quick to point out that this archaic harvesting method is obsolete except on the most remote farms, and that all modern commercial enterprises like Cooperative Amal rely exclusively on tree-harvested fruit.
Women gather the drupes (afiash in Berber) and dry them in the sun. They separate the nut from the flesh (allig), then crack open the nut to recover the kernels within, which can contain up to 50 percent oil. These they roast, then grind to extract the oil. The nutshells are used as fuel for heating and cooking. The allig and the left-over oilcake from the ground kernels are shaped into patties called tazgamout and sold as cattle feed.

On a hot June morning, dozens of gunnysacks bulging with sun-dried argan fruits were piled high within Cooperative Amal's cavernous warehouse and production facility. Seventy-eight-year-old Ijja Oubla, the cooperative's oldest member, sat on a colourful straw mat astride a stone block. She processed the argan fruit while bantering with co-workers. A kettle of water on the coals of a canoun next to Fatima Fakir, who, at 30, is Amal's youngest member. Like Ijja, she is adept at cracking open each nut with a small oval stone. Proof of her dexterity rests by her side: a large bowl filled with smooth, mahogany-colored kernels. Even so, it takes her 15 to 20 hours to accumulate the 2½ kilograms (5½ lb) of kernels required to produce one liter (26 fl oz) of argan oil.

The work is tedious, yet clearly a source of pride for Fakir and her 70 co-workers. But surely a machine could perform this task more quickly? Amina Edelcadi explains the rationale for perpetuating the manual operation. "It's simple. If we used purely mechanical means, these women would be out of a job. You have to remember that our main purpose is to provide employment for as many women as possible."

Members of the cooperative earn around 35 dirhams a day (about $3.50), depending upon production. Some industrious workers receive as much as $75 a month. (Morocco's average gross national income per person is about $99 a month.) At the end of the year, all members share in Cooperative Amal's profits.

Fakir breaks into a broad smile when asked how the Coopertive Amal has changed her life. "My husband likes the fact that I bring home some money, and my pay allows me to send our daughter to school. It also gives me the chance to attend literacy classes." "At my age, I like not having to depend on anyone," chimes in the venerable Oubla. "Earning an income is important, but so is the development of each woman's self-esteem. When I see a woman walking along the side of the road wearing new clothes, accompanied by her equally well-dressed children, I know she must belong to the cooperative," says Charrouf.

She is also proud of Cooperative Amal's effect on local society. "Every dqy, I see the positive impact of cooperatives. "Let me tell you a story,"she says, brushing back a lock of hair from her face. A governor wanted to dump his town's garbage in a nearby stand of argan trees. The local women banded together and picketed with signs that read 'Touchez pas à ma forêt!' - 'Don't couch my forest!' The national media caught wind of the story, and the caid had to relent!"

Cooperative Amal does make a few concessions to modernity: a gas-fired roasting drum and electric machines for pressing the kernels and filtering the oil. In addition, it employs nitrogen gas infusion in the bottling process to delay oxidation of the argan oil and extend its shelf life. A traditional processing implement, a hand-turned granite quern called a raha,is on display in the cooperative's foyer. One just like it is still in use in Casablanca's Marché Central, but it is mainly for the benefit of tourists.

The members of Cooperative Amal de Tamanar grind almost 200 kilograms (440 lb) of kernels every week, and annually they produce 10,000 liters (2640 gal) of argan oil. Most is for domestic consumption, but some is shipped to specialty stores in Europe, Canada and the United States. To bring argan oil to the attention of the global market, the cooperative has set up a Web site.

In October, Cooperative Amal received a special jury award from the prestigious international Slow Food Association, a group that promotes respect for traditional and ecologically sound methods of food production.

Success and international recognition inspired other communities within the argan forest. A discreet sign lures visitors to another cooperative, Cooperative Ajdigue ("argan blossom") in the village of Tidzi, 60 kilometers (37 mi) south of Essaouira. Inside, Samira Anjar and a colleague apply attractive labels to bottles of argan oil, to decorative jars of argan-based lotion and face cream, and to containers of an aromatic and delicious Nutella-like concoction of ground almonds, honey and argan oil, called amlou.

Like its counterpart in Tamanar, Cooperative Ajdigue received financial assistance from both national and international sources. It markets its oil in Morocco,Holland, Germany and France.

In Essaouira, along Morocco's coast, Jean-Claude and Evelyne Dulac, together with Mohamed Kabbaj, own Dar Loubane restaurant. They are ardent aficionados of argan oil. They use it, as well as amlou, to enhance many of the dishes featured in their elegant 18th-century riyyad, or courtyard guest house, inside the walls of Essaouira's picturesque city center. "Try a teaspoon of amlou on a warm baghrir,"Evelyne coaxes, showing the leavened pancake to patrons. "C'est delicieux!"

Diners discern the oil's light, hazelnut-like flavor in a number of dishes, from a vibrant salad of charcoal-grilled red peppers and marinated anchovies to a sumptuous tagine (stew) of chicken and dried apricots.

"Essaouira's cooks like to sprinkle argan oil over a dish of steamed couscous," Evelyne adds. "I often fry eggs in the oil before seasoning them with a little cumin. Our foreign patrons love it."

Moroccans treasure their argan oil for its pharmaceutical and cosmetic uses as well, for which oil is extracted from unroasted kernels. It is said to cure juvenile acne and rheumatism, and its high content of linoleic acid makes it a popular hair conditioner and nail fortifier, notes Charrouf - who is also president of Morocco's Ibn Baitar Association for the study of medicinal plants. She believes the discovery of further medical applications for argan oil is only a matter of time.

In 2003, Charrouf organized GIE Targanine, a legally recognized umbrella organizqtion comprising four cooperatives, each with its own director and its own marketing program. She hopes to see 30 more cooperatives open by the end of 2005.

"At this rate, we may even create enough work to employ a few men!" she says with a laugh.

References:
Cooperative Amal: www.targanine.com 
Argan oil suppliers:
www.argan3.com  (Quebec)
www.earthy.com    (Michigan) 
www.haddouch.com (Washington) 
www.exoticaoils.com (Pennsylvania) 
www.arganis.ch (Switzerland)
Written by Kitty Morse, originally published in Saudi Aramco World, September/October 2004. Photographed by Owen Morse Published by courtesy of Saudi Aramco World.
http://www.moroccotimes.com/paper/article.asp?idr=11&id=5800 
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