Political Development Essay

Morocco is located in North Africa at the border of Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea . Onto the south it neighbors Western Sahara and due east with Algeria. Its terrain consists of mountain, desert and coastal plain with only about 21% of total land which is productive . The people in the region basically comprise of the Berber, Arab, African, Spanish and French. Morocco is considered to be one of the most westernized Islamic nations. Its population is close to thirty million with a population growth rate of 2% per annum . Arabic is general spoken language. The Southern parts of Morocco uses French while in the Northern parts, Spanish and French are commonly used languages. English language is a new language which is being introduced in the country. Majority of the population are Muslim affiliates and number of Jewish, while in northern parts especially those who speak Spanish and French, a greater portion belong to catholic religion. Morocco’s economy is that of liberal in nature which follows the dictates of demand and supply. Privatization policy is not a new phenomenon as some of the sectors were handed down to the hand of private sectors. However, its economy is characterized by relatively slow economic growth and inflation rate. Basically, employment largely anchors at agricultural sector which is never reliable due inadequate rains . Unemployment is escalating generally, affecting majority of the youths especially in urban areas . Social evils such as trafficking of young women and girls for prostitution and domestic service and sexual abuse are the characteristic phenomena in Morocco besides high level of illiteracy, and unemployment . Non-Governmental Organizations refers to lawfully constituted organizations that operate independently from the government. There are some Non –Governmental Organizations which acts as donor and or development partners depending on the charter of their mandates. Virtually all of the Non-Governmental Organizations acts on humanitarian grounds focusing on alleviating human suffering by improving the human welfare for quality living. Some Non-Governmental organizations operates on a large scale where they may cover a very large geographical region, while still others operate at national level or in limited areas within a country . International Non-Governmental Organizations cover several geographical regions as their scope of operation while local Non –Governmental Organizations usually operate within the country or in some parts of the country International and Local NGOs in Morocco: United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is one of the International Non-Governmental Organizations that has intensified its work in the country of Morocco through an economic program. Since Morocco has a liberal economy, it is governed by the law of supply and demands. In the context of globalization, farmers in the country would have faced cut-throat competition after agricultural tariffs were lowered as result of trade agreement between USA and Morocco. To save the farmers from such agony, USAID works with the farmers to have their crop yields improved and creates alternative jobs in form of industries to avert overdependence on farming as the only way of employment. It assists by linking export business to competitively get into the US market in ways such as by cutting down the numbers of days officially needed to register the business from sixty to eleven. This was actualized when USAID got into the microfinance field in Morocco. It had two prime objectives. One was to start a microfinance institution that would be self sustainable and grow to support the farmers and businessmen’s need. The second one was to foster policy that could favor this establishment of microfinance sector. All of its efforts toward making true these objectives were very successful due to its technical skills it possessed and its full commitment for these projects’ sustainability to serving large number of the poor . This has been witnessed particularly for the last seven year of its operation. Besides improvement of economic growth of Moroccans, it also featured in improving education level by increasing access to quality education and relevant basic education to all. This was because there has been high illiteracy level in the country. To achieve this USAID used ‘school-to-work’ approach by ensuring linkage between training and employments at various levels. Basic education has much attention on achieving high retention rates to ninth grade and possible equipping the learners at this level to adaptable skills for the next level. It lays more emphasis on courses such as information technology and tourism in technical colleges as the country has prominent tourist attraction sites and this is geared to promote tourism industry in the country. Global Rights is an International Non-Governmental Organization that partners for justice through advocacy of human right by collaborating with local activists. They speak to make heard injustices done at global level. It deals with legal and human rights education comprehensively from semiliterate to illiterate women from all walks of life in Morocco. This initiative aims to empower women to know their collective and individual rights so as to be assertive to these right and give them power in decision making in all matters affecting them, be it in household, community, national or at global level. So far the program has reached thousands of women across the country. By so doing the initiative aims at curbing alarming number of young women and girls at risk of human trafficking for prostitution and domestic service in the region. Besides human trafficking in different parts of Morocco, there has been an increase in cases of sexual abuse among young women and girls. Therefore, this necessitated direct service and intensive advocacy . Increased access to information has been deemed to be one of the successful approaches particularly starting with community liaisons, lawyers, teacher, researchers and the at-risk population and entire community would help curb such vices. Food and Agricultural Organization has not been new in Morocco. This country having been relying heavily on the agricultural sector for employment, much is needed to be done to revive the sluggish economic growth of the country . Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) is the United Nation’s agency that is involved in collecting, analyzing and interpreting and sharing the information with relevant stakeholders related to agriculture and nutrition. It is barely four months when an outbreak that posed threat to sheep and goats was announced in Morocco. In the month of September peste des petites (PRR) threatened to kill about a million sheep and goats where a hundred and thirty three outbreaks were reported within twenty nine provinces of Morocco. Being a viral causative agent and a very contagious to all ruminants, about 17 and 5 million sheep and goats respectively were at stake . This could be translated to loss of family livelihoods as so many of them depended on this. In response to this, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) took drastic measures after receiving request from the government to beef up the interventions. This made FAO’S Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD) to convene a two-day meeting in Tunisia to chart the way forward over the situation. During the two-day summit, it was collectively agreed to help the Morocco government to prepare an emergency plan and see its implementation together with appropriate coordination with veterinary services of Maghreb among others from neighborhood countries. Right now FAO is in the advanced stage of setting up an urgent regional cooperation project. Control measures that were taken necessitated quarantine of suspected or affected farms and institutions and make urgent review of animal disease emergency contingency plans as well as raise awareness on the outbreak of the disease by all stakeholders concerning its risks and clinical signs. This is the latest development that FAO has been able to undertake in Morocco. Besides, livestock production, in the sector of agriculture, F. A. O has been in the forefront to see the country is in the process of achieving the millennium goal number one; that of eradication of extreme poverty and hunger through adoption of new innovations such as high yield, and fast growing crops that are drought tolerance. This will enable the country to attain level of food and nutrition security required. Use of biotechnology which has been witnessed in Nigeria where cassava clones are being propagated as disease free plants for the higher yields, are now incorporated in Morocco. World Food Program is the world’s largest humanitarian body. World Food Program is on a global campaign to ensure undernourished school going children are educated through its school feeding program. During worst time when there is total crop failure in Morocco, it has severally responded by providing relief food to the regions that needs emergency intervention. Community Based Organizations are local non-governmental organizations which are found in Morocco just like in other third world developing countries. Community based organizations collaborate with International Non-Governmental Organization and are the ground players. International Non-Governmental Organization for sustainable development make use of local organizations so that without setting other new parallel programs they can build on the existing system and facilitate on capacity building of the community. Faith Based Organization is a local non-governmental organization that has particular religious group affiliation. For instance, in northern parts of Morocco there is significant number of Christians who have come together to form faith based organizations to cater for the needs of their less fortunate member in time of need. Conclusion Non-governmental organizations primarily have humanitarian affair at their centre of focus. They feature on development transformation of community in which they are operating on. According to the transformational development indicators, the lives of many communities in different parts of the country have really improved. The level of illiteracy has decreased as a result of increased enrollment and retentions in schools . School- to- work approach has created job linkages among youths as a way of fighting unemployment in the country. Through, improving agriculture and easy accessibility to credit facilities, farmers are able to get good returns while others are able to diversify their income. This has seen improvement of living standard of the community. References: Agnaou Fatima, (2004); Gender, Literacy, and Empowerment in Morocco. ISBN 0415947650, 9780415947657, Routledge Davis K. Diana, (2006); Neoliberalism, Environmentalism, and Agricultural Restructuring in Morocco. The Geographical Journal, Vol. 172 Facts about Morocco, (2008). Retrieved on 16th November 2008 from: http://cc. msnscache. com/cache. aspx? q=morocco+facts&d=74397575479858&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=1d93f448,870bb89e Fisher Julie, (1998); Nongovernments: NGOs and the Political Development of the Third World. ISBN 1565490754, 9781565490758, Published by Kumarian Press Kourous George & Omolo Dominic, (2008); Outbreak of ‘peste des petits ruminants’ in Morocco. Retrieved on 16th November 2008 from: http://www. fao. org/newsroom/en/news/2008/1000918/index. html USAID/Morocco, (2004); Annual Report. Retrieved on 16th November 2008 from: http://pdf. dec. org/pdf_docs/PDACA063. pdf