España y Marruecos anuncian un programa de desarrollo enfocado a mujeres y jóvenes

Spain and Morocco have signed an administrative cooperation protocol with the aim of supporting the empowerment of more than 3,000 women and young people through entrepreneurship in the social and solidarity economy in four regions of Morocco.

The protocol was signed by the Moroccan Minister of Tourism, Crafts, Air Transport and Social Economy, Nadia Fettah Alaoui, the Spanish Ambassador to Morocco, Ricardo Diez-Hochleitner Rodríguez, and the representative of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), Ignacio Martínez Boluda.

The project will last 36 months and the AECID is expected to invest 600,000 euros. All of this is aimed at women and young people with innovative projects in the regions of Casablanca-Settat, Souss-Massa, el Oriental and Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima.

According to the Moroccan Ministry of Tourism, the project aims to find new solutions to combat the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. This initiative also forms part of the recovery plan for the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) sector of the Moroccan government.

Fettah Alaoui pointed out that the selected regions have a rich potential in human and natural resources that can be further developed through the 'social and solidarity economy'. "Promoting the SSE will contribute to job and wealth creation, social inclusion, sustainable development, equity and the empowerment of women and young people, especially in the rural world," she explained.

The added value of this project is focused on developing the capacities of women and young people to structure and promote activities for the production of goods and services, as well as the establishment of an ecosystem conducive to the social economy.

The minister also pointed out that this convention offers a unifying framework for Spanish-Moroccan collaboration, which makes it possible to increase "the scope and coherence of actions for greater efficiency and results".

Bilateral cooperation will help to develop several innovative projects with little capital and very high added value, such as crafts, the green economy, the blue economy, solidarity tourism, the circular economy and the digital economy.

For his part, the Spanish ambassador in Rabat stressed that the agreement signed forms part of the sustainability line of the 2015-2019 cooperation programme contract between the AECID and the Moroccan Ministry of Tourism.

In this regard, he recalled that two important programmes have been implemented over the last decade. One related to the support of crafts in the north of Morocco, which seeks to implement public policies aimed at strengthening the productive fabric of crafts.  The other focuses on institutional support for the social and solidarity economy sector and support for pilot projects in the regions of Souss- Massa, Casablanca-Settat and Oriental. 
This programme has enabled more than 300 cooperatives and Economic Interest Groups (EIGs) to benefit from training programmes, technical assistance and business opportunities. 

The new cooperation protocol, which takes into account the current fragile economic context linked to the coronavirus crisis, encourages the mobilization of the capacities of both countries to support the process of inclusive development of women and youth by promoting social and collective entrepreneurship.

The SSE sector is designed to develop in a context of globalisation. The succession of economic and financial crises makes this type of initiative more necessary than ever. The idea is to place people at the centre of the process of economic and social development. "We need a more equitable, inclusive and environmentally friendly recovery towards sustainable economies and more resilient societies," the Ambassador explained.