Morocco's Corrupt Water Sector

The previous posts focused on Ain Salah's fracking protests and the end of the cease-fire between Western Sahara and Morocco. Today's post in turn reviews Morocco's water services. 

Like other countries in North Africa, Morocco is vulnerable to climate change. The country for instance lost 25% of its wetland in 20 years, at the expense of the country's rare biodiversity (Green et al., 2002) (Fig. 1). Morocco furthermore has the highest water poverty index and the largest development deficit in North Africa (Schilling et al., 2012). These poverty indexes could explain Morocco's will to exploit Western Sahara's rich water resources discussed in my previous post on Western Sahara.

Figure 1): Oystercatcher by Merja Zerga wetland (Naturalworld10, 2018)

To deal with the country's vulnerability to climate change and its low development rates, a complex water sector is in place and made up of various different actors. Three kinds of water actors are involved: Consultation and Coordination services, Ministry Departments, and Public institutions (Fig. 3) (Stockholm International Water Institute, 2017). Myriad other unmentioned actors are involved such as user associations in rural areas or the operators of water production and distribution. 

Figure 3: Actors of the Moroccan Water sector (Stockholm International Water Institute, 2017)

These actors took action on resolving the water issues and launched several plans to regulate and manage water use. The Moroccan Ministry of Agriculture launched the Green Moroccan Plan (PMV) (Plan Maroc Vert) in 2008. PMV’s main goals were to develop a modern and sustainable agriculture open to foreign markets and to alleviate poverty by increasing agricultural revenues (Food From Morocco, 2017). In turn, the head of the government, King Mohammed VI’ launched the National Water Pan (PNE) (Plan National d’Eau) in 2015. PNE’s main goals were to manage water demand and improve the overall quality of drinking water (Afilal, 2017).  The Moroccan water sector has hence attempted to respond to the water poverty of the country, by involving various actors and implementing different plans. However, they remain limited. 

A first critique is that Moroccan actors favour big water firms at the expense of smaller farmers. Certain firms are for instance exempt from paying taxes by the River Basin Authorities (RBAs) -a public institution. Water services moreover fail to be transparent and communicate well. Many farmers for example are unaware that they have to apply for water licenses and thus dig illegal wells, later facing reprisals (Kalpakian et al., 2014). Another limitation is that actors and services take advantage of farmers. Farmers have contested the allocations of funds of the PMV and PNE, as many have not received the supposed subsidies from the PMV (World Bank, 2007). Middlemen supposed to help farmers with paperwork for the PMV often manipulated farmers and overcharge them (Stockholm International Water Institute, 2017). The Moroccan water sector’s initiatives are thus corrupted at the expense of small-scale citizens (Fig. 4).

Figure 4: Small-scale Moroccan farmers (Watson, 2014)

Moroccan water actors have tried to respond to water-poverty in the country by employing a complex water sector and launching several water plans. However, corruption stands as an obstacle to the success of such initiatives. Once again, the water sector serves the political elites and marginalises smaller actors.