924 resultados para Morocco--Kings and rulers--Biography


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The upheavals of the Arab Spring in the southern Mediterranean led to domestic and international demands on the governments in the region to implement reforms aimed at enhancing business and investment conditions especially for micro, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), which carry out an overwhelming majority of the region’s economic activity. A comprehensive survey among some 600 high-growth potential MSMEs in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia identified and ranked the key obstacles impeding their high-growth potential. This Policy Brief summarises the main results and policy recommendations that can be drawn from this survey, which has been analysed in depth by Ayadi & De Groen (2014).

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Introduction. In the speech given to both Houses of Parliament on 11 October 2013 during the first parliamentary session, King Mohammed VI said that the “Moroccan democratic model” was “a precursor in the region as well as on the continental level.”1 Similarly, with the purpose of stressing the “democratic exceptionalism”2 of the country, the new government, led by Abdeilah Benkirane, emphasised that Morocco represents a “third way” compared to countries such as Tunisia, Libya or Egypt since it “…has not embarked on a limited process of reform from the top, driven and controlled by the King. Nor has it experienced a revolution brought a angry citizens rising up against the regime. Rather, it has chosen an alternate path based on a genuine partnership between the King and the PJD (Parti de la justice et du développement) that promises to bring about more far-reaching reform than palace alone would grant, without the disruption caused by uncontrolled popular upheaval.”4 It should not be at all surprising that the regime and the new Government consider Morocco a “democratic model” or a “third way.” After all, they are refe country. What is harder to understand is that when discussing the Arab uprisings, even prominent Western political leaders, representatives of the European Union institutions and the mainstream media (when they do not forget about Morocc to praise the process of democratic reform carried out by Mohammed VI. For example, on 12 September 2012, Hillary Clinton, former US Secretary of State, said, “in many ways, the United States looks to Morocco to be a leader and a model […] On political reform, we have all seen remarkable changes taking place across North Africa and the Middle East. I commend Morocco and your government for your efforts to stay ahead of these changes by holding free and fair elections, empowering the elected parliament, taking other steps to ensure that the government reflects the will of the people.”5 Similarly, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy sang the praises of the process that led to the adoption of the new 2011 Constitution: “King Mohammed VI has shown the path towards a profound, peaceful and modern transformation of Moroccan institutions and society […] France fully supports this exemplary process.” Interestingly enough, even at the European Union level the constitutional reform that took more far-reaching reform than palace alone would grant, without the disruption caused by uncontrolled popular upheaval.”4 It should not be at all surprising that the regime and the new Government consider Morocco a “democratic model” or a “third way.” After all, they are refe country. What is harder to understand is that when discussing the Arab uprisings, even prominent Western political leaders, representatives of the European Union institutions and the mainstream media (when they do not forget about Morocc to praise the process of democratic reform carried out by Mohammed VI. For example, on 12 September 2012, Hillary Clinton, former US Secretary of State, said, “in many ways, the United States looks to Morocco to be a leader and a model […] On political reform, we have all seen remarkable changes taking place across North Africa and the Middle East. I commend Morocco and your government for your efforts to stay ahead of these changes by holding free and fair elections, empowering the elected parliament, taking other steps to ensure that the government reflects the will of the people.”5 Similarly, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy sang the praises of the process that led to the adoption of the new 2011 Constitution: “King Mohammed VI has shown the path towards a profound, peaceful and modern transformation of Moroccan institutions and society […] France fully supports this exemplary process.” Interestingly enough, even at the European Union level the constitutional reform that took place in Morocco was considered an extremely positive step taken by the country, as well as a means to strengthen the cooperation between the EU and Morocco. Indeed, according to the High Representative Catherine Ashton, this reform “constitute[s] a significant response to the legitimate aspirations of the Moroccan people and [is] consistent with Morocco’s Advanced Status with the EU.”7 When it comes to the media, it is worth noting that following the ratification of the 2011 Constitution, The New York Times headlined: “All Hail the (Democratic) King.” Even sections of the academic literature have commended the constitutional reform carried out by the Moroccan Sovereign.9 In this paper I argue against the aforementioned idea, according to which Morocco should be considered a model in the region, and in particular I show that the constitution-making process, the 2011 Constitution and its subsequent implementation have more flaws than merits. Accordingly, this paper proceeds in five steps. First of all, I examine the reaction of the regime to the upheavals that broke out in the country after 20 February 2011. Secondly, I analyse the process of constitution showing its main strengths and weaknesses, and comparing it with other constituent processes that took place in the region following the Arab uprisings. In the third section, I highlight the most significant elements of continuity and discontinuity with the previous 1996 Constitution. The fourth section deals with the process of implementation: specifically process is proceeding quite slowly and that in some cases ordinary legislation is in contrast with the new Constitution and international human rights treaties. Moreover, I discuss the role that the judiciary and the Constitutional Court can play in the implementation and interpretation of the Constitution. Finally, I draw some concluding remarks.

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The question of state sustainability is highly relevant in the case of Morocco. Despite the image of a modernising and liberalising country, Morocco is undergoing a delicate phase in its development. The recent upheavals in the Maghreb and the Middle East alongside the growing problems of poor education and high unemployment are likely to bring to the surface the unsustainable elements of Morocco’s status quo. The central issues concern the quality of institutions, reforms aimed at promoting the rule of law, curbing corruption and overhauling the judiciary. This paper will argue that while institutional quality is a pre-requisite for successful and sustainable socioeconomic performance, this cannot be achieved unless major reforms in the political system are carried out. There exists a window of opportunity to accelerate reforms and to address the acute centralisation of Moroccan politics and decision-making, the lack of accountability of the monarchic institutions, as well as the fragility of representative bodies, such as parties and trade unions. Seizing this window of opportunity could spare Morocco a period of instability, while also assuring continuity in the framework of the transition that started in 1999 when the new king came to power.

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The paper builds predictive scenarios for the agricultural sector of eleven southern and eastern Mediterranean countries (SEMCs), namely Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey. First, it assesses the performance trends of the SEMCs’ agricultural sector, with a focus on production, consumption and trade patterns, incentives, trade protection policies and trade relations with the EU, productivity dynamics and their determinants. Second, it presents four scenarios based on the main value chains of the SEMCs’ agriculture sector: animal products, fruit and vegetables, sugar and edible oils, cereals, fish and other sea products. The four scenarios are: business as usual, Mediterranean – one global player, the EU-Mediterranean area under threat and the EU and SEMCs as regional players on the global stage.

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More than a year has passed since the start of the political uprising against the authoritarian regimes in the Arab world. But, as demonstrated by the ongoing unrest in Syria, the process is far from over. Meanwhile, nations that have already rid themselves of their authoritarian rulers (Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen), must decide where to go now and how to manage their political and economic transitions. To a lesser extent, a similar challenge is being faced by those constitutional monarchies (such as Morocco or Jordan) that accelerated reforms in order to avoid political destabilisation.   Many politicians and experts, especially those from Central and Eastern Europe, suggest that their Arab colleagues should learn from the post‐communist transition of the early 1990s. However, while learning from others’ experience is always a useful exercise, the geopolitical and socio‐economic context of the Arab revolution appears to be different, in many respects, from that of former Soviet bloc countries more than twenty years ago.

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This study aims at assessing the socio-economic and environmental effects of different societal and human development scenarios and climate change in the water-scarce southern and eastern Mediterranean. The study develops a two-stage modelling methodology that includes an econometric analysis for the southern and eastern Mediterranean region as a whole and a detailed, integrated socioecological assessment focusing on Jordan, Syria and Morocco. The results show that water resources will be under increasing stress in future years. In spite of country differences, a future path of sustainable development is possible in the region. Water withdrawals could decrease, preserving renewable water resources and reversing the negative effects on agricultural production and rural society. This, however, requires a combination across the region of technical, managerial, economic, social and institutional changes that together foster a substantive structural change. A balanced implementation of water supply-enhancing and demand-management measures along with improved governance are key to attaining a cost-effective sustainable future in which economic growth, a population increase and trade expansion are compatible with the conservation of water resources.

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Measuring human capital has been a significant challenge for economists because the main variable of interest is intangible and not directly observable. In the Middle Eastern and Northern African region the task is further complicated by the general scarcity of comparable and reliable data. This study overcomes these challenges by relying on a unique international survey that covers most of the region and by deriving a market-based measure that uses returns to education and various labour market factors as guidance. The results show that private returns to schooling are relatively low in most southern Mediterranean countries (SMC). Israel and Turkey are clear outliers, surpassing even the EU-MED averages. In Algeria and Jordan, the returns are almost flat, implying that earnings do not respond significantly to education levels. Despite high attainment levels, Greece, Spain and Portugal also perform badly; only marginally surpassing some of the bottom-ranked SMC, providing evidence of problems in absorption capacity. The baseline scenarios for 2030 show substantial sensitivity to current estimates on returns to education. In particular, improving attainment levels can produce measurable gains in the future only when the returns to education are already high. Such is the case for Egypt, Morocco and Turkey, which substantially improve their human capital stocks under the baseline scenarios, surpassing several EU-MED countries with little or no room for improvement.

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This MEDPRO Technical Report shows that the monetary and exchange rate policies conducted by central banks in the South Mediterranean region display apparent homogeneity in their operational frameworks, albeit with some specificities and differing degrees of advancement. While central banks state that price stability is their ultimate objective, failures to control interest rates as operational objectives of monetary policy result in monetary authorities resorting to quantitative approaches to monetary policy, meaning that monetary aggregates and credit targets are being used as intermediate targets of monetary policy. An econometric exercise limited to Maghreb countries (Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia) has been conducted to analyse the potential scenarios of convergence and monetary policy coordination. Given the high structural heterogeneity and the slow pace of real convergence due to weak commercial integration in the Maghreb, results nevertheless show alternative dynamics in the integration of effective nominal exchange rates, as well as a complete convergence dynamic in exchange rate policies. Partial convergence of monetary policies regarding the stabilisation of inflation rates remains an open option for a transitional phase where financial integration is low.

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The paper offers an analysis of the degree to which two different external policy frameworks of the European Union (EU) have institutionalised and operationalised the EU’s commitment to women’s rights and gender equality. It compares the EU’s relations with the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries with the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP), using Senegal and Morocco as case studies. Although the comparison shows some resemblances between the two cases, as a whole women’s rights seem more deeply embedded in the institutional framework of EU-ACP relations than that of Euro-Mediterranean relations, and this together with the EU’s approach towards implementation has enabled its women’s rights policy to be slightly more influential on the ground in Senegal than in Morocco. However, both EU-ACP and EMP frameworks have their limits, reflecting the more general problem of inconsistency between the EU’s declaratory objectives and its actual promotion of human rights.

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The post-Arab Spring period in Morocco has undergone different stages of changing state-society relations with regard to democracy, citizenship and human rights. The first stage, between February 2011 and the summer of 2013, was characterised by popular protests demanding democracy and freedom. People criticised public policies related to civil, political and social rights (employment, health, education, the status of women, and the issue of Amazigh). This outburst put the state in an awkward, defensive position. If we compare Morocco with the other Arab Spring countries, the Moroccan state’s reaction was moderate in its use of violence and repression, and it was positive, in that it resulted in the implicit, yet official acceptance of the demands for democracy, citizenship and battling corruption. In his speech on 9 March 2011, the king pledged to modify the Constitution and democratise the institutions.

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In order to elucidate possibility of limestone phosphatization during contact with seawater two sets of experiments were carried out: that of solubility of natural phosphates in seawater and that of deposition of phosphorus onto calcareous phase. Concentration of phosphorus in seawater used for solubility experiments varied from 39 to 338 µ/l, temperature was 5.5-17.5°C and pH 7.8-7.9. The lowest solubility was characteristic of ancient crystallized samples. The deposition experiments showed that in case when concentration of dissolved phosphate in seawater reaches 3 mg/l it might be sorbed on solid CaCO3 phase without forming its own mineral. The latter is able to form rapidly but only if magnesium is not present in solution. In magnesium-free water calcium phosphates precipitate when concentration of dissolved phosphorus is higher than 0.9-1.2 mg/l. These results show that phosphatization of limestones in marine environment takes place during their contact with pore water but not with marine bottom water.

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Cores from the Atlantic Ibero-Moroccan continental rise and slope contain fine-grained Late Pleistocene and Holocene sediments. These young sediments cover the continental margin in large lensformed litho- and biostratigraphically well-defined units. The total sedimentation rates range from 4 cm/ 1000 yrs. to 27 cm/1000 yrs. off Portugal and from 6 cm/1000 yrs. to 14 cm/1000 yrs. off Morocco. Only a small proportion of these sediments usually consists of sand-sized particles (>0.063 mm) which are mostly dominated by foraminifera. Both planktonic and benthic foraminifera are much more abundant in Late Pleistocene and Holocene samples from the upper slope in comparison to those from the deeper slope and from the abyssal plains. Total sedimentation rates during cool and warm climatic stages are rather similar for both groups of foraminifera. For example, in Late Holocene sediments 7 x 10**3 benthic and 201 x 10**3 planktonic foraminifera (fraction 0.63 -0.20 mm) per 100 cm**2 and 1000 yrs. are preserved in the Tagus, 10-19 X 10**3 benthic and about 1.3 X 10**6 planktonic foraminifera are preserved in the Seine abyssal plain sediments. Values from the upper slope sediments are higher for benthic foraminifera by a factor of 60 off Portugal and 60 to 70 off Morocco. The values for planktonic ones differ by factors of 6-12 and 6 respectively. These numbers seem to reflect differences in production and preservation. Production rates of planktonic foraminifera generally seem to be somewhat higher during Holocene than during Late Pleistocene, and the rates of benthic foraminifera appear rather higher during Late Pleistocene than during Holocene.

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The high-productive upwelling area off Morocco is part of one of the four major trade-wind driven continental margin upwelling zones in the world oceans. While coastal upwelling occurs mostly on the shelf, biogenic particles derived from upwelling are deposited mostly at the upper continental slope. Nutrient-rich coastal water is transported within the Cape Ghir filament region at 30°N up to several hundreds of kilometers offshore. Both upwelling intensity and filament activity are dependent on the strength of the summer Trades. This study is aimed to reconstruct changes in trade wind intensity over the last 250,000 years by the analysis of the productivity signal contained in the sedimentary biogenic particles of the continental slope and beneath the Cape Ghir filament. Detailed geochemical and geophysical analyses (TOC, carbonate, C/N, delta13Corg, delta15N, delta13C of benthic foraminifera, delta18O of benthic and planktic foraminifera, magnetic susceptibility) have been carried out at two sites on the upper continental slope and one site located further offshore influenced by the Cape Ghir filament. A second offshore site south of the filament was analyzed (TOC, magnetic susceptibility) to distinguish the productivity signal related to the filament signal from the general offshore variability. Higher productivity during glacial times was observed at all four sites. However, the variability of productivity during glacial times was remarkably different at the filament-influenced site compared to the upwelling-influenced continental slope sites. In addition to climate-related changes in upwelling intensity, zonal shifts of the upwelling area due to sea-level changes have impacted the sedimentary productivity record, especially at the continental slope sites. By comparison with other proxies related to the strength and direction of the prevailing winds (Si/Al ratio as grain-size indicator, pollen) the productivity record at the filament-influenced site reflects mainly changes in trade-wind intensity. Our reconstruction reveals that especially during glacial times trade-wind intensity was increased and showed a strong variability with frequencies related to precession.

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Mode of access: Internet.