Morocco Employability and Land Compact

MCC’s $460.5 million Morocco Employability and Land Compact supported two Moroccan Government priorities that contribute to economic growth and investment in the country: employability and land productivity.

Morocco’s economic and political stability has contributed to continuous economic growth and significant poverty reduction over the past decade. Although poverty trends are improving, regional inequality remains considerable, with an urban/rural divide in access to public services and economic opportunities. Morocco has critically low rates of gender equality and one of the lowest female labor force participation rates in the world. By supporting policy and institutional changes that will improve Morocco’s investment environment and by creating models for engagement with the private sector, the Employability and Land Compact address both the supply and demand sides of the labor market.

The Government of Morocco committed to carrying out these policy and institutional reforms and made a financial contribution of 20 percent toward the compact.

Financials

Financials as of March 31, 2023

Compact Budget

Milestones

  • Signed:
     November 30, 2015
  • Entry Into Force:
     June 30, 2017
  • Closed:
     March 31, 2023

Compact Projects

Education and Training for Employability Project

  • $226,230,275Project Total Amount
  • $224,537,497Project Amount Committed
  • $203,104,564Project Amount Expended

Education and Training for Employability Project comprised two activities:

  • The Secondary Education Activity contributed to improving the quality of secondary education by piloting a participatory approach to school improvement in 90 schools across three regions of Morocco. The activity invested in reforms to school governance, coupled with targeted investments in infrastructure, technology, and training for teachers and school administrators. The activity also invested in improvements to the education management information system and in the operations and maintenance of school infrastructure and equipment.
  • The Workforce Development Activity undertook investments designed to improve the quality and relevance of technical and vocational education and training by supporting private sector driven governance as well as the construction/rehabilitation of 15 training centers, together with targeted investments in policy reform of the sector. This activity also invested in improvements to job placement services through a results-based financing mechanism as well as improvements to the availability and analysis of labor market data.

Progress and Achievements to Date

  • 15 TVET centers were largely completed, either through the creation of new centers or the expansion of existing centers, which will offer high-quality technical training in response to private sector demand.
  • RBF grants were given to eight agencies and NGOs that provide training and job placement support to women and vulnerable youth. These providers were paid in direct proportion to beneficiaries’ job placement and six-month job retention results.
  • Ninety secondary schools in three regions of Morocco piloted an innovative process of developing School Improvement Plans through a participatory process. The plans were implemented using discretionary funds provided by the Government of Morocco.
  • MCC launched the Morocco Employment Lab in partnership with MIT’s Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and Harvard’s Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD). The Lab sought to create a culture of evidence-based policymaking in Morocco through rigorous evaluation and capacity building. The Lab also commissioned four large-scale research studies and several other exploratory research studies.
  • The compact expanded the use of the Government of Morocco’s information system (EMIS), improving access to school-related data. In 2021, MCC helped launch the MASSAR Mobile application, giving students, parents, teachers, and administrators access to real-time data on grades, absences, homework, and lesson plans.
  • MCA-Morocco, the entity implementing the compact in Morocco, developed a new operations and maintenance system to improve the maintenance and upkeep of secondary schools, which was then tested in schools in the Tanger-Tetouan-Al Hoceima region.

Land Productivity Project

  • $171,679,805Project Total Amount
  • $171,201,070Project Amount Committed
  • $149,240,177Project Amount Expended

Land Productivity Project comprised three activities:

  • The Governance Activity contributed to improving land governance and alleviating land market constraints to investment and productivity, in part through the development of a National Land Strategy, and by supporting priority land governance actions, including those focused on strengthening women’s land rights.
  • The Rural Land Activity demonstrated a faster and more inclusive process for granting titles on irrigated collective lands to individual men and women smallholder farmers who are members of the collective. The activity strengthened land rights for farming families while also investing in measures to promote sustainable agricultural development of the newly privatized land—including climate resilient agriculture—and inclusive development of the target population.
  • The Industrial Land Activity supported the use of market-driven approaches to industrial zone development and management to foster sustainability and private sector investment, including through public-private partnerships and a leveraged grants facility.

Progress and Achievements to Date

  • The Government of Morocco, in collaboration with MCC, piloted the implementation of legal reforms regarding inheritance on collective land undergoing privatization and titling. The combined effort of awareness raising at the community level, training of local leaders and government officials, and legal assistance to women and their families to navigate the process led to an increase in women’s land ownership. Of the 55,173 hectares privatized through the pilot, women comprised 35 percent of land title holders compared to 0.2 percent that would have been eligible without claiming their inheritance rights.
  • The compact supported the Government to create a new institution—the Center for Women’s Inclusion in Land Rights—which will address women’s empowerment by promoting women’s rights to land and property and by gathering and analyzing related data to inform public policy making.
  • The Government of Morocco and MCA-Morocco, the entity implementing the compact in Morocco, signed PPP agreements to develop and operate three industrial parks in the Casablanca region: Bouznika, Had Soualem, and Sahel Lakhyayta Industrial Parks. These represent the first ever industrial park PPPs in Morocco.
  • $37 million was awarded through the FONZID Grants Facility to improve and/or expand nine existing industrial parks across Morocco, leveraging an additional $45 million by the project sponsors. Morocco’s Ministry of Industry committed an additional $15 million to a second FONZID grants cycle which was successfully launched in February 2023 and will be managed by the Government post-Compact.
  • Together, the three industrial park PPPs and 9 FONZID projects will develop or improve over 400 hectares of industrial land in Morocco, leverage over $500 million in private investment, and create over 80,000 jobs.
  • In addition, the compact provided a $10 million grant to build the capacity of Morocco’s state-owned financial institution that is the sole provider of public guarantees. The grant will create the first ever guarantee mechanism for commercial loans in Morocco dedicated solely to green investment projects that reduce carbon emissions or improve environmental performance in industrial parks. The guarantee aims to mobilize up to $160 million in commercial loans and catalyze up $200 million in private investments in climate-friendly projects.

As of May 19, 2023