Speeches Shim
USAID/Morocco is at the forefront of locally led development within the Agency, finding ways to succeed with a limited budget in a diverse and complex development context. In 2015, it became one of the first Missions involved in the Local Works Program, a USAID initiative that provides funds to Missions to pursue locally owned programming and innovative operational approaches. This brief provides a summary of USAID/Morocco’s experiences to date with locally led development, lessons learned, and recommendations based on its experience.
USAID addresses gender as a cross-cutting issue with a focus on increasing women’s political and economic inclusion in Morocco. Nearly every activity under the current strategy has a plan to address gender issues.
Recognizing water as a national security issue for Morocco and its neighbors in the region, USAID is using innovation and technology to establish state of the art and sustainable water management practices in Morocco. The H2O Maghreb activity implements cutting edge solutions to urgent water needs in Morocco and the region, while improving the skills and employability of young Moroccans by providing them with a market-driven training program in a newly established water training hub.
Youth unemployment is not unique to Morocco. Worldwide, young people are two or three times more likely to be out of work than their parents. Morocco fits this pattern with an overall unemployment rate of 10 percent, with youth (15-29 years old) being twice as likely to be without a job. This cadre of young people, who make up approximately one third of Morocco’s total population of 35 million, represents a pool of untapped talent not contributing to economic productivity. Ironically, the more educated youth become, the more likely they are to be unemployed. Morocco is currently creating less than 50 percent of the new jobs required to keep up with the growing working age population: every year, the job market is gaining 240,000 new entrants each year while only 129,000 new jobs are being created. As a result, USAID and the Government of Morocco share youth employability as a top priority for national policy and economic growth.
Community policing is both a philosophy and an organizational strategy that emphasizes partnership and collaboration between police and the communities that they serve with the objective of identifying and jointly responding to problems of crime, disorder, and fear of victimization. USAID supports the Kingdom of Morocco’s reform efforts through a community policing pilot project in designated marginalized neighborhoods in Tangier and Tetouan.
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