Poverty Still a Major Cause for Concern in Morocco

Rabat – The tragedy of Essaouira on 19 November left at least 15 women dead and five injured, in a food aid stampede in the weekly market of Sidi Boulaalam, south of Morocco. Moroccan human rights activists and analysts unanimously think that Morocco needs a new development approach. This disaster highlights the suffering of people from the current drought in Morocco and from the rise in the prices of basic foodstuffs, at a time of skyrocketing unemployment, and of an unprecedented stagnation of wages and incomes.

What has happened is the result of the permanent deepening of social inequalities due to the prevailing liberal economic order and full involvement in unbridled globalization from a vulnerable position, poor governance, and an unfair distribution of wealth.

As the 2015 Nobel Prize-winner, economist Angus Dayton has pointed out, globalization and technological innovation create new job opportunities for millions of people, but they subject a large number to unemployment and economic predicament, and the result is widening the gap between the poor and the rich.