Remarks by the President of the House of Councillors, Mr. Hakim Benchemach
at the thematic seminar on
“Regional Disparities and the Challenge of Solidarity Among Regions”
July 3, 2019
Casablanca-Settat Region
The Honorable President of the Casablanca-Settat Regional Council,
The Honorable Minister of National Planning, Urban Development, Housing, and Urban Policy,
The Honorable Governor and Director General of Local Communities,
My esteemed colleagues in Parliament,
Ladies and gentlemen, representatives of constitutional institutions and ministerial departments,
Ladies and gentlemen, presidents and representatives of regional councils, provincial councils, and municipal councils,
Ladies and gentlemen;
It is my pleasure to open this regional thematic seminar organized by the House of Councillors and the Casablanca-Settat Regional Council, in partnership with the Association of Regional Presidents, the Moroccan Association of Presidents of Provincial and Regional Councils, and the Moroccan Association of Presidents of Municipal Councils, and with the support of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, on a subject of great importance. The process of implementing advanced regionalization—which constitutes the strategic foundation for economic and administrative transformation in our country as well as a solid basis for achieving greater effectiveness in public policies—remains stalled and unable to reduce regional disparities between regions and between local areas within each region.
It is worth noting in this regard that numerous studies conducted by reputable national institutions have concluded that regional disparities are a serious issue with negative implications for our country’s development process. Among these findings, we cite, for example:
There is a strong regional concentration of economic activities and a lack of investment in regional capacities, such that 7% of the territory accounts for 58% of GDP, alongside weak integration of urban plans (conclusion of a study conducted by the Department of National Land Use Planning, Urban Development, Housing, and Urban Policy);
Only four regions account for more than 62% of the national economy’s growth, and a single region accounts for approximately 48% of our country’s gross domestic product (a summary released by the Ministry of Economy and Finance);
It is also worth noting that, according to an analysis conducted by the High Commission for Planning, it will take our country approximately 24 years to reduce current regional disparities by half.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The Moroccan development model to which we all aspire—and which is currently undergoing a participatory review and reconstruction—is founded on social justice, on ensuring effective access to economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights, and on gender equality, and on giving top priority to vulnerable groups and to the economic and social integration of youth through training, employment, and finding practical solutions to their real problems, especially in rural areas and marginalized and poor neighborhoods. These are foundations that will only be truly realized through the achievement of two interdependent and interconnected goals: reducing class disparities and addressing regional inequalities.
However, achieving these two objectives depends on commitment, vision, planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation, so that the national development model can be adapted to the specific characteristics of each local area in harmony with the overarching vision on which the national model is based, It also requires maximizing the full potential of the new legal framework for local communities and revitalizing mechanisms for representation, mediation, and participation at the local level.
We are therefore called upon to accelerate the administrative and technical transition from the central government to the regions and to strive to develop innovative regional development models that are in harmony with the new generation of economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights.
Ladies and gentlemen,
This vision, which links social and spatial justice as the foundation of Morocco’s developing development model, finds its normative basis particularly in the provisions of the third paragraph of Article 35 of the Constitution, which defines the nature of the State’s positive obligation to work toward “achieve sustainable human development that promotes social justice,” an obligation that stems from the choice of social justice as one of the pillars of a cohesive society, the elements of which are defined in the preamble, which forms an integral part of the Constitution.
These positive obligations and objectives of a constitutional nature must be understood in relation to the constitutional principles concerning regional and local authorities, particularly the contribution of these authorities and other local bodies to the implementation of the State’s general policy and to the formulation of local policies through their representatives in the House of Councillors.
public-private partnership mechanisms, decentralized cooperation, participatory mechanisms for dialogue and cooperation, and regional mechanisms for project implementation and multi-year financial programming, to build development models at the territorial level that ensure justice and equity among regions and among territorial units within the same region?
How can local diagnostic and planning mechanisms be leveraged to reduce social disparities and spatial imbalances at the regional level and between regions, and how can the Social Rehabilitation Fund and the Inter-Regional Solidarity Fund be utilized to achieve these objectives, particularly through the mobilization of the necessary financial resources for this purpose?
How can the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals workshops be leveraged as a promising opportunity to strengthen economic, social, and environmental resilience at the national and regional levels, with a view to localizing the 17 UN goals, and ensure effective implementation of the goals and rigorous monitoring at the regional level, in a way that enables our country to secure a distinguished international position as one of the few nations that has relied on its regional system to empower all regions and citizens to benefit from these strategic goals for the future of humanity?
How can we strengthen the role of the Regional Business Climate Committees (CREA), as an important and smart initiative to enhance the quality of the regional business climate, in order to improve our country’s ranking in the World Bank’s Doing Business Index, especially since this index has included regional rankings since last year?
Ladies and gentlemen,
These are some of the concerns and questions I wanted to share with you. Allow me, in closing, to thank the Council of the Casablanca-Settat Region—its president and members—for their swift response to the recommendations of the Parliamentary Forum of Regions by co-organizing this thematic seminar.
My thanks also go to all constitutional institutions and bodies, ministerial departments, and all stakeholders for participating in this seminar.
I would also like to thank all the media outlets that attended to cover the events of this symposium with their usual professionalism.
I wish this symposium every success, and I hope it will lead to practical recommendations and suggestions that can serve as a basis for developing legislative and regulatory initiatives to support the effective implementation of advanced regionalization.
Thank you for listening.
