KING MOHAMMED THE ANTI-FEDERALIST:

Reforming Morocco from the Ground Up: Morocco, perhaps more than any other country in the Middle East, knows that violence and terror will end only when the conditions fueling them are resolved. As Jason Ben-Meir explains, the country’s National Initiative for Human Development is a big step in this direction and could mark the beginning of a region-wide movement. (Jason Ben-Meir | Monday, January 16, 2006, The Globalist)

In May 2005, Morocco launched its National Initiative for Human Development as part of a broader plan of social reforms that have taken place since King Mohammed VI's ascendancy to the throne in 1999. [...]

Training people in facilitating community meetings throughout the project area will give the Initiative the reach it needs to engage people in the development process from village to village and neighborhood to neighborhood.

The facilitators are particularly important in the beginning stages of the process. They help to organize meetings, manage conflicts and develop consensus. Schoolteachers, government technicians (such as in health and agriculture), politicians, non-government personnel, community members and others can be effective facilitators.

One example of where this is already taking place in Morocco is the national park's divisions, some of which have facilitators on their staffs. These facilitators assist the members of rural villages that neighbor protected nature areas with creating strategic plans for the development of their communities.

The projects that are designed involve agreements between the villages and the park managers. Often, these initiatives take the form of new income generating activities as desired by the local people (such as fruit tree planting) in exchange for the villagers' accommodation of nature protection measures, such as not allowing grazing animals to feed in designated areas within the park.

The new income reduces communities' dependence on the natural resources of the protected areas and in turn promotes conservation. In this way, economic development in itself can further environmental goals. The facilitators play a critical role by helping to bring all parties together and negotiate win-win scenarios.

This kind of development is federalist democracy in action. Local people making fundamental decisions and mobilizing for the development of their communities is the hallmark of federalism. What is more, broad participation — which is extremely difficult to achieve without effective facilitation — is a basic quality of a vibrant democracy.

The public-private partnerships that are formed are shown to have sensitized government officials to the needs and interests of local people. The partnerships also encourage greater accountability and transparency, which help to prevent corruption.

If Morocco's National Initiative makes training in facilitation a major vehicle through which communities across the nation are brought into the development process, the socio-economic and political consequences of this 'bottom-up" approach will be profound. Morocco will then be a unique example in the world of a country that has implemented this approach on a national scale.