What can vulnerable Moroccans living overseas expect from Morocco’s government when it would not even engage brilliant, well-respected Moroccans proudly representing our country across the world?
Morocco’s geographical location puts Moroccans at the crossroads of several national and cultural groups, giving them a rare openness on and to the world. Moroccans of the World (MoWs) are now more than 5 million, representing 15% of the country’s population and, taking into account the total number of the national population, one of the highest migrations in the world.
But what is being done to engage, make the most of these overseas Moroccans? Not much.
First, some clarifications. The very use of the term “diaspora” to describe Moroccan emigration raises questions. It does not have a traumatic origin (conflicts, natural disasters, or persecutions), nor does it maintain the general idea of a return movement or that it sustains a certain sense of transversality among Moroccans in their respective host countries. Yet there exists among Moroccans of all backgrounds a palpable sense of collective memory and the persistence of a strong “myth” of the homeland of origin.
So, while Moroccan emigration cannot be described as a diaspora in the academic sense of the term, it constitutes a very particular human reality that should be better studied and more thoroughly investigated, beyond the opportunistic, if not timely, initiatives of certain actors in civil society or in the political arena.
Secondly, consider these figures that should give us food for thought. According to the UN, the average Moroccan emigration between 1990 and 2020 was around 50,000 people per year. Similarly, a 2020 report by Morocco’s own High Commission for Planning (HCP) established that 78% of Moroccans currently living abroad left Morocco during the 2000-2018 period and 24% left since 2015.
Whichever way you look at these findings, they point to an alarming brain and talent drain for Morocco. For the Moroccans compelled to immigrate for better opportunities, meanwhile, these figures subtly tell the story of a sense of bitterness for having no choice but to resign to the idea of leaving their home and loved ones behind in their quest for greener pastures.
Of the 5 million Moroccans residing outside of the motherland, many are executives, high-ranking or well-respected professionals, shopkeepers, teachers, workers, researchers, artisans. In other words, most of them are, through their remittances and various investments back home, invaluable contributors to the immaterial and even material wealth of this country.
And yet, according to a recent ranking by the International Office for Migration (IOM), Morocco has been lagging behind in terms of creating an encouraging and supportive environment for migrants, including Moroccan nationals established abroad.
MoWs once had a full-fledged ministry dedicated to them, but that ministry has now become a delegated department, first attached to the office of the head of government, then to that of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Even more concerning, with the current government, MoWs are simply attached to a foreign affairs ministry overwhelmed with so many other concerns and priorities.
The Akhannouch government has a ministry for tourism, one for handicrafts, one for transporters, and another for higher education. But none for 5 million of our fellow citizens, who make up 15% of our country’s total population, constitute a lot of brain power and a wealth of expertise in a wide-range of sectors, as well as contribute nearly 7% of the gross GDP? That is as unfathomable as it is insulting for our fellow countrymen residing abroad.
In addition to their geographic and sectoral omnipresence and the influence that goes with it, members of the Moroccan diaspora transfer to Morocco more than MAD 100 billion every year (and even so, only 42.3% of MoWs are reported to regularly transfer money back to Morocco). But they don’t even have representation in parliament, although they are often referred to in government communication as the 13th region.
Don’t they deserve elected officials, and even a full ministry that is wholly dedicated to them, that travels to meet them, that takes care of their core issues related to them, and that proposes texts and/or legislative amendments in their favor? Because they are much more than the MAD 100 billion they pump into the national economy every year; they are the brain and heart of Morocco in the world.
As King Mohammed VI said in a speech on August 20 of last year, the aggregation of MoWs into a united and homogeneous whole must be the object of a public policy. In his speech, the King tellingly asked: “What have we done to strengthen the patriotic feeling of our immigrants? Do the existing legislative framework and public policies take into account their specificities? Are the administrative procedures adapted to their current expectations? Have we provided them with the necessary religious and educational framework?”
Outside of conferences and meetings organized in a rush in the wake of such strong words from the King, these questions still remain without a real answer.
Or, as a November 2022 survey by the Social, Economic, and Environmental Council (CESE) established, “If the Moroccan emigrant population includes brilliant successes, with world-class names in many sectors and several countries, it also includes large vulnerable categories.”
However, what can our vulnerable fellow citizens living abroad reasonably expect from the government when it would not even engage, or make the most of, the brilliant and world-renowned Moroccans proudly representing our country across the world?
All of these issues highlighted above persist in large part because Morocco has a multitude of similarly tasked agencies and institutions that are mainly passive and ineffective in carrying out what is supposed to be their main duties: identify and respond to the challenges facing Moroccans, regardless of where they may be.
To this end, the CESE’s survey provides some edifying and interesting insights: the supply of health care in Morocco is unsatisfactory (84.4%), as are administrative services (71.2%), judicial services (65.8%), and even investment-related services (59.7%). And the same survey proposes solutions, which are only waiting for decision-makers to be implemented.
If some timid progress has been made of late, a lot remains to be done regarding the challenges facing overseas Moroccans, as much in the moral realm because they are first and foremost citizens of the country, as on the scientific and economic front because this community is as rich in knowledge as it is in finances.
To do this, and to answer the still pertinent and unresolved questions the King asked last August, all Morocco’s government has to do is to read — slowly and well — the alarming findings of surveys or reports like the one the CESE conducted last November.
