Virtual Magazine of Morocco on the Web
Morocco Week in Review 
September 3 , 2006

Information technology working for human rights in Morocco.
Turning Challenge into Opportunity.
Over MAD 600 millions to support water sector reform in Morocco.
Morocco receives USD 45 million loan from kuwaiti fund for IT education
In the poor south of Morocco, women's rights is a class act.
Moroccan Youth between Rock and Gnawa
Free press takes root in Morocco.
An incubator to boost entrepreneurial spirit among Moroccan women.
Morocco: Here's Looking At You, Girlfriends

Information technology working for human rights in Morocco.
By Rachid Jankari for Magharebia in Casablanca – 25/08/06
The Tanmia.ma association has produced a CD-ROM to promote women's and children's rights in Morocco. The "Know Your Rights" project has been largely financed by the EU.

The Tanmia.ma association has produced a CD-ROM to promote human rights in partnership with several NGOs and EU funding. The programme includes six Flash-animated series aimed at raising awareness about women's and children's rights in Morocco. The teaching resource is based on true stories from focus groups of men, women and children.

The CD-ROM, part of the "Know Your Rights" project, can be accessed online and will be available to human rights organisations beginning in September. Tanmia has decided to distribute it openly, knowing it can be freely copied and distributed by other parties. The association also hopes to distribute the CD-ROM to schools so the next generation will learn about the new Moudawana family code, which protects women's rights in marriage, divorce and child custody. The code, as well as the principle of children's rights under current Moroccan legislation, is explained via simple concepts. The series is available in Arabic, Amazigh and French. The other three series focus on the need to stay in school, the right not to have to work and protection from domestic abuse.

Tanmia has worked with the Moroccan Association of Assistance to Children in Precarious Situations, the Moroccan Association of Family Planning, Afoulki, the Democratic Association of Moroccan Women, Association Annakhil, the Initiative for Protecting Women's Rights, and the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour to ensure the appropriateness of its messages to its target audience and to write the scripts for the series and descriptions of the characters. Through its involvement in the project and its interaction with EU experts, Tanmia director Majda Bessaih said on the EU website, the organisation has found a way of "sending this resource out to reach the whole public -- educated and illiterate people alike".

Since its creation in 2004, the association has worked to promote new technologies in Morocco. Apart from "Know Your Rights", Tanmia has recently launched a Web kit for creating tailored Internet sites for associations in French and Arabic. Each subscribing association will be entitled to a Web site hosted on: www.assodev.ma/association, a search engine, discussion forums and e-mail addresses. The Web kit costs 1,999 dirhams for the first year and 899 dirhams for each subsequent year. Tanmia's overall stated mission is to re-enforce the capacities of and help sustain civil society organisations in Morocco and increase networking and communication through user-friendly technology. http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2006/08/25/feature-02
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Turning Challenge into Opportunity. 
Volume 107 .   25.08.2006

Recently, the EU has enhanced security cooperation with Morocco, and by extension, its partnership in the kingdom's economic development.
On August 23, it was announced that the EU granted Morocco 67m euros ($85m) to help the fight against illegal immigration by improving the country's surveillance and investigative ability. Morocco is a source, and more importantly, a transit country for the steadily growing stream of illegal migrants, mostly from Sub-Saharan Africa, attempting to enter Europe. According to a statement from the EU's representative office in Rabat, "The management of migration is one of the priorities of cooperation between the European Commission and Morocco,"

Morocco also received accolades from both Rome and Brussels for its efforts in fighting illegal migration since the headline-grabbing incidents at Spain's North African enclaves, Ceuta and Melilla, which are adjacent to Moroccan territory. In late September 2005, hundreds of migrants tried to rush the three-metre-high, razor-wire fences. Five migrants died and the conduct of Moroccan border patrol officers was questioned.

This week, Benita Ferrero Waldner, European commissioner for external relations and European neighbourhood policy, said "It is essential to find solutions to this issue [illegal migration] together. It is crucial to take an active interest in the living conditions of our neighbours and work with them to overcome the challenges of increasing migration to create a more stable environment in our countries."

Illegal migration is not new to either Morocco or Spain, but the numbers of migrants have increased dramatically in recent years.

Security is now much tighter around Ceuta and Melilla, so migrants are boarding unsafe rubber rafts and floating to Spain's islands in the Atlantic, as well as heading east to Algeria and Libya, where they board boats and set sail for the Italian coast. After security was increased around Ceuta and Mellia, Giuliano Amato, Italy's interior minister, told the Cabinet in Rome that in the last two months of 2005, 15 times as many migrants had been intercepted than during the same period in 2004, although he did not cite specific numbers. Indeed, according to sources ranging from the Italian police to Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), somewhere between 100,000 and 250,000 migrants illegally enter the EU through Italy alone each year.

In the wake of such incidents, observers in Morocco and elsewhere point out that, if the flow of migrants is ever to decrease, economic development and security for all source and transit countries must be encouraged and supported. On October 3, 2005, then Interior Minister el-Mustafa Sahel called for a new Marshall Plan, in the spirit of the US programme to reconstruct Europe after World War II, to develop Sub-Saharan Africa and decrease the flow of migrants to the EU. The EU welcomed the idea, and Brussels quickly released 40m euros ($50.94m) to Morocco to beef up security.

Meanwhile, Italy, a frontline country when it comes to the fight against illegal migration, is fostering development by boosting its business ties with Morocco. On August 22, Ugo Intini, Italian deputy minister of foreign affairs met with the, Rachid el-Alami, Moroccan minister delegate of economic affairs and Chakib Benmoussa, Moroccan minister of interior. Intini told MAP news agency that investment conditions in Morocco are excellent, and that the Italian government has set up a partnership with the country as a strategic objective.

To create jobs in Morocco as well as benefit Italian businesses, the government is planning to encourage and support Italian firms, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to outsource some of their activities to Morocco. El-Alami stressed the opportunities for Italian investors in construction and infrastructure, export and services. Italy's economic presence in the kingdom remains low compared to that of Spain or France. Intini also said that the two countries share the "same views" regarding illegal migration, terrorism and fundamentalism, and that the issue of immigration must be approached through development and partnership, including working to alleviate poverty and exclusion in source countries.

At present, the kingdom receives remittances worth 9% of its GDP annually from nationals living abroad, who have migrated both legally and illegally in search of economic opportunity.
http://www.oxfordbusinessgroup.com/weekly01.asp?id=2210
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Over MAD 600 millions to support water sector reform in Morocco.
30 August 2006

The European Commission has given Morocco MAD 600 million (Euros 59.7 million) to fund the second section of the reform programme of the water sector in Morocco, reported a communiqué released Tuesday by the delegation of the European Commission in Rabat. Initiated in 2002, the objective of this programme is to improve water management in the Kingdom, particularly by the application of the law regulating the water sector adopted in 1995, both at the institutional and legal levels.

This should happen by the reduction of the costs borne by the State budget and by the increase in the efficiency of the institutions responsible for the management of water and liquid waste. The implementation of the reform constitutes a major concern in the EU-Moroccan cooperation. For this purpose, the European Commission has supported the Moroccan government by a direct budgetary assistance for a total amount of over MAD 1 billion, paid out in two instalments, explained the same source.

The profound reform of the water and liquid waste sector hinges on six main themes: the integrated management of water resources, tariff regulation of the uses of water, reassignment of the investment budgets, the reform of the management of agricultural water, the recourse to public-private partnerships and inter-communality, the control of the impact of liquid discharge on the environment, the safeguarding of the quality of water, and the policy of liquid waste treatment, added the same source. © Morocco Times 2006
http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidZAWYA20060831045748/secCountries/pagMorocco/chnMorocco%20News/obj22403786-8F1A-11D4-867000D0B74A0D7C/
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Morocco receives USD 45 million loan from kuwaiti fund for IT education .
RABAT, Aug 29 (KUNA)

Kuwait's is expected to lend Morocco a sum of 15 million Kuwaiti Dinars (about USD 45 million) to finance promotion of information technology education, it was announced here on Tuesday. The Fund's board Chairman Abdullatif al-Hamad and the Moroccan Minister of Finance and Privatization Fathullah Walgo signed the loan agreement here today. With an annual interest rate of 4.5 percent, the loan would be paid off in 22 years' time with a grace priod of four years, according to the agreement.

At least 8600 rooms would be furnished with 100,000 computers and internet systems as Morocco has embarked on a project to promote information technology in the country's public education sector. More than 230,000 instructors are expected to receive training on use of the computers and more than 6,000 teachers would be trained on the use and application of information technology and communications. The fund, established in Kuwait 35 years ago, has given Morocco an aggregate of loans totaling up-to-now 748 million Kuwaiti dinars. http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidKUN0069060830140647/secCountries/pagMorocco/chnMorocco%20News/obj22403786-8F1A-11D4-867000D0B74A0D7C/
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In the poor south of Morocco, women's rights is a class act.
By Marc Burleigh. MIRLEFT, Morocco (AFP)

The hardscrabble, dirt-poor countryside of southern Morocco is not the place you would expect a social upheaval to be taking place. After all, in these bare hills dotted with rose-coloured villages made of pressed mud and rocks, survival is the only concern, and things like running water, meat dishes and clean clothes are all considered luxuries.

But for one teacher, putting an end to the centuries-old subjugation of women and girls and instilling his pupils with a sense of gender equality and dignity is as basic as eating, or reading and arithmetic. Mouloud Belfakir, 32, comes from the same Berber stock as his charges, a formerly nomadic people who live in the mountain regions of North Africa.

But, married to a Frenchwoman and seeing the influx of Europeans buying seaside villas in the region, he understands the world that is opening up to his students and wants them to be able to take part -- all of them. "The catastrophe here is that, when you're born female, it's very difficult," he says.

New laws introduced two years ago by Morocco's King Mohammed VI have gone a way to challenge the powerlessness women have long suffered in the country's male-centric Arab culture. Girls as young as 15 can no longer be whisked off for marriage. The minimum age for them is now 18, as for men. And wives now have the right to divorce their husbands, and to get property rights.

Getting those new rights known, though, is a real struggle, often subtly resisted in poor communities where tradition trumps legislation. As a result, Belfakir came up with a school play he wrote himself this year to transmit the changes to his 23 pupils -- and, he hopes, to others Moroccan schools he plans to have it performed in. Girls wearing customary veils and boys with stuck-on beards act out scenes in which abusive husbands used to raising their voice or their fist to their spouses are put in their places. "No, you have no right to hit me," says one young girl, who strikes back at her 'husband', sending him limping off the makeshift stage.

In another scene, a group of girls recite the new rights given to women. The acting is rudimentary and the dialogue stiff, but the message comes across clearly. So clearly, in fact, that foreigners in Mirleft make the trip along a rutted dirt road to watch the play, and, at its end, dance with the actors to traditional Berber music and singing.

Still, there are grumbles among the local menfolk -- and a few older women -- as they give voice to fears that the changes being taught will sweep away the few certainties they hold dear. Belfakir admits as much, saying "it's difficult -- but things are changing." Parents and grandparents are right to worry that they might not have help in their old age from the younger generation turning to more Western ways, he says.

He adds that he supports his elderly parents, who live in a remote mountain area, on his monthly salary of 3,700 dirhams (370 euros, 290 dollars), but he is not always available to physically lend a hand. "A new model is being established, and sacrifices will have to be made," he says.
The crux of it all is to empower girls from a young age. "Here, it's the women that do all the work," he says. Their second-class status also means they often get little schooling. Belfakir points out one shy little nine-year-old girl, Malika Tiriourt, whom he says has become one of his brighter students, despite her desperate origins.

Abandoned by her father, she was "rented" out to a family for 200 dirhams a month as a goatherd. Her main sustenance came from eating the goat's droppings. Now, he hopes to keep her in his small class. To counter the often high rate of dropouts, he is also working to provide school lunches partly financed through the sale of craftwork made in the village. "I'm not expecting a revolution," the teacher says. "All I want is to give them a proper education."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060816/lf_afp/afplifestylemorocco_060816135702
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Moroccan Youth between Rock and Gnawa .
20/08/2006By  Layla Al-Zubaidi for Qantara.de

Many young Moroccans feel that the country's mainstream media is offering them a very limited notion of musical culture. But with the evolution of the Internet, international music has become more easily accessible, Layla Al-Zubaidi reports. Banging their heads, 20,000 young Moroccans urge the bands on stage to play their favourite songs. The Boulevard de Jeunes Musiciens, which takes place every June in Casablanca, features acts ranging from hip-hop, to rock-metal, and fusion. Originally started as by a small group of people who dreamt of building an alternative music scene in Morocco, the festival has developed into the most important platform for local bands.

The publicity it created, helped pave the way for a number of now well-known groups like Darga, Hoba Hoba Spirit, H-Kayne, Barry, Total Eclypse, Aba'Raz, Fnaïre, and Haoussa. Morocco's young musicians don't see a problem in combining all kinds of genres with local music traditions such as the popular chaâbi or gnawa, created by the descendants of former slaves originating from Sub-Saharan Africa. Here, the usual deliberations about "Westernisation" which so often dominate discourses about the impact of globalisation on the Arab world seem very removed. Amine Hamma, who was central in building the scene, asks "How are we to name these new music waves? Urban? Alternative? Contemporary? Amplified? Western?"

Some call it Moroccanised occidental music, others the opposite: "raï-hop or metal-gnawa or electro-chaâbi." Far from political correctness, he notes, this music is based on the free copy and cultural melange. But he also remarks that since it is still hardly understood, it is often too simply classified as the music of "marginalised youth," challenging the adult world.

The lure of heavy metal music
A lack of understanding towards the Moroccan youth and their forms of expression also played a role in 2003, when 14 heavy metal musicians and fans, accused of being "devil worshippers," were sentenced to up to one year in jail for "undermining the Muslim faith and good morals". The sentences rallied Moroccan civil society activists, who flooded the streets to demonstrate their solidarity.

Now however, says nineteen-year-old music aficionado Amine Charif, heavy metal concerts are taking place almost weekly. In 2005, he recalls, the German band Kreator performed from their album, entitled "Enemy of God." "There never was such an event in an Islamic country before!" Why does heavy metal appeal to so many young Moroccans?

Amine stresses that the music itself is the most important factor, even more than the desire to rebel against society and to be different. He adds that the young generation has never really felt any connection with the music broadcasts by the national TV and radio, which includes Egyptian-style and traditional Andalusian tunes: "It was like a dictatorship by mainstream adults telling us what we should listen to. But in the past two decades, with the evolution of the media, international music has become more easily accessible, and young people can make their own choices."

"In the end, it's all a question of identity"
Many of the new bands express themselves in the Moroccan "Darja," and mix it with French and English. "Our priority is to reach the millions of people here, before we make ourselves understandable in the Arab world," explains Reda Allali, member of the Casablanca band Hoba Hoba Spirit. "People who don't master Arabic still feel inferior, and we intend to take this complex away from them. In the end, it's all a question of identity."

While Morocco is heavily exposed to Middle Eastern media, the transfer in the other direction doesn't really take place. In addition, the way in which Middle Eastern countries present their cultural production seems to create an uneasy relationship.

Cracks in the pan-Arabic imagery
Amine Charif thinks that shifting musical tastes reflect the cracks in the pan-Arabic imagery. While he observes that there's still a good deal of young people who enjoy romantic Middle Eastern music and video-clips, he argues that many don't feel any affinity at all.

"Arabic music is advertised as the music of our brothers and of a dreamed great Arab nation, but when you compare it to Western music, many Moroccans find Arabic music antiquated, full of clichés and, musically speaking, poor. Other Moroccans just don't feel that they are Arab, the majority being of mixed Arab, Berber, and African origins. So they adopt occidental lifestyles more easily and, accordingly, music tastes."

Apart from occasional cases of overt censorship, such as in 2003, musicians mainly suffer from marginalisation, as the music industry is not prepared to take risks. Next to concerts, the Internet is therefore is playing an increasingly important role in promoting Moroccan talent. Rock and metal are especially perceived as too alien by dominant cultural norms. "We were victims of a wave of phobia against the West in the aftermath of the events of 11 September," says musician Réda Zine. "Now we have to concentrate on supporting the young people in what they do best: playing music, shouting for change." © Qantara.de 2006
http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2006/08/20/feature-02
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Free press takes root in Morocco.
By Bahia Amrani / Originally published August 28, 2006 CASABLANCA, Morocco

More than 500 years before Alexis de Tocqueville memorialized his impressions of American society in his celebrated Democracy in America, a Berber traveler from Morocco set off from Tangier on a pilgrimage to Mecca that would last 30 years. Thereafter known as the "Traveler of Islam," Ibn Battuta authored a travel chronicle that would have a profound effect on Islam for centuries.

Unlike Democracy in America, which was concerned with demystifying American life for a French audience, Mr. Battuta orchestrated his own cultural exchange program, taking tidbits from the lands he visited during his trek and sharing them with his rapturous Islamic audience. Breaking down barriers along the way, Mr. Battuta provided to diverse audiences enough common ground and shared experiences that they could relate to each other.

Having just completed my own brief trip to American cities as part of a delegation of Moroccan female media professionals, I look back on my experience as more Battuta than Tocqueville. During my trip, I spoke with journalists, editorial boards, magazine editors and television producers about the development of the free press in Morocco, the pioneering role played by women in shaping its contours, its implications for Morocco's future and, more broadly, the future of the Muslim world.

The development of a free press in Morocco is an encouraging case study with the potential to serve as a model for other Muslim countries. The development of the free press did not occur overnight and continues to be a work in progress. As the founder and publisher of Le Reporter, an independent weekly newsmagazine in Morocco, I have witnessed firsthand the marked change in the attitude of the Moroccan government toward the media.

Only 10 years ago, I had to contend with government censors and agents who would literally park themselves in our offices to monitor magazine content. Beginning with the ascent of King Mohammed VI to the throne in 1999, a new relationship emerged between the government and the media. Not only were distrust and skepticism replaced by mutual respect and support, but the media became the vehicle for a mass reform movement in Morocco, a movement enthusiastically endorsed by the king.

It was this message that I set out to impart to my American media colleagues. Too often, Americans brush the entire Muslim world with the same stroke. To take one example, although Islamic extremism continues to be a scourge to the entire Muslim world, the way Morocco grapples with the problem is far different from the approach taken by many other Muslim countries.

Americans might be startled to learn that the Moroccan government has a zero-tolerance policy for Islamic extremism and has contributed in substantive ways to the world's war against terrorism. Recent government policies have focused on creating better educational opportunities and stamping out illiteracy among disadvantaged youth, a demographic that is most vulnerable to the seduction of extremists. The media pushed for these reforms, and the government, to its credit, enacted the necessary policies.

With independent newspapers, magazines, radio, Web sites and privately owned television network channels around the corner, Morocco can proudly boast that it has the freest media in the Muslim world. Historic reforms to the family code enabling Moroccan women to initiate divorce, and human rights breakthroughs such as the equality and reconciliation commission arose through the efforts of ambitious independent media that consider themselves indispensable to the fabric of Moroccan civil society and a veritable agent of reform. Already, other Muslim countries in the Middle East and North African region are seeking to emulate Morocco's free press; if they succeed, reform and democratization are sure to follow.

In the spirit of Ibn Battuta's epic travels, I consider my trip to the U.S. a success. Our delegation laid an additional foundation to the bridge of understanding between Morocco and the U.S. As a result of the U.S. tour, our American media counterparts gained a better appreciation for the enormous strides taken by Morocco in the last 10 years, and at the same time, the trip afforded me an opportunity to renew my love for America and its commitment to freedom, tolerance and mutual understanding. It is an experience that I will share with my fellow Moroccans for years to come.

Bahia Amrani is founder, editor and publisher of Le Reporter, a Moroccan independent newsweekly devoted to reporting and analyzing national and international affairs, politics, education, business and health issues. Her e-mail is bahia.amrani@gmail.com. Copyright © 2006, The Baltimore Sun |
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.morocco28aug28,0,2776953.story?coll=bal-oped-headlines
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An incubator to boost entrepreneurial spirit among Moroccan women.
By Adam Mahadi for Magharebia in Casablanca – 28/08/06

In October, the Association of Moroccan Women Business Leaders incubator will start receiving applications from the first businesses to be created by female initiatives in the field of services and Internet and communications technologies. The UN Development Programme and the UN Development Fund for Women are supporting the initiative.

The Association of Moroccan Women Business Leaders (AFEM) has decided to launch an incubator called "Casa Pionnières" to counter the fact that women still considerably lag behind men in the business world. The initiative is dedicated to helping women with innovative ideas create their own businesses in the field of services and information technology.

Casa Pionnières aims to contribute to Morocco's economic fabric. In Morocco, most women business leaders work in the informal sector, such as domestic work, meaning their work and contributions do not appear in national economic statistics. Much of their work is also performed under difficult, precarious conditions for low wages.

Project co-ordinator Salwa Kerki Bekziz, the ex-president of AFEM, thinks the project can be a first step towards bringing about change. "The appeal for applications will be launched by Casa Pionnières during October with a view to select projects to benefit from personalised assistance and mutualised services," she said. The incubator steering committee will select the 25 projects to benefit from accommodation, equipment, assistance, training, and networking.

After the selection of future beneficiaries, the project has planned a preliminary "pre-incubation phase" to help the women prepare their business plans and gain training in administrative, financial and marketing management techniques.

The final aim of the AFEM incubator is to teach the women to develop independence so that they will be able to move out of Casa Pionnières.

Once the results of the Casablancan pilot incubator project are in, AFEM hopes to replicate the experiment in Fez.
The 3,500,000-dinar Casa Pionnières project has the support of several governmental partners and international organisations, including the Ministries of Endowments and Islamic Affairs, the UN Development Fund for Women, the UN Development Programme, Paris Pionnières, the Maroc Entreprendre network, and the BCP Foundation for Business Creation. http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2006/08/28/feature-01
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Morocco: Here's Looking At You, Girlfriends
Washington Post / Sunday, August 27, 2006; Page P04

Amber Husbands of the District is the latest contributor to our Your Vacation in Lights feature, in which we invite Travel section readers to share the dish about their recent trips. It's a big, confusing travel world out there, and you can help your fellow travelers navigate it. Your hot tip can be the next guy's day-maker; your rip-off restaurant, the next family's near-miss. To file your own trip report -- and become eligible to win a digital camera -- see the fine print below. (more on the following page:
 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/25/AR2006082500338.html)
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