Reimagine Morocco – An Emerging Country in 2025

It is the 31st of March, 2025. The governor of the central bank has just announced the growth forecast. Morocco will achieve a double digit growth rate for the 5th consecutive year: a rate of 11.3%, driven by the renewable energy and artificial intelligence sectors. The unemployment rate is no higher than 3.5% according to the data from the High Commission for Planning. The country is ranked 28th on the Human Development Index and the GDP per capita PPP has reached $15,000 versus $7,000 in 2015.

Peering through the looking glass, these are some of the macroeconomic indicators of a reimagined North African emerging economy. Meanwhile, Morocco’s economy is expected to grow below 2% percent in 2016 and the Kingdom of Morocco is ranked 126/188 countries in the Human Development Index. By no means is this due to a lack of willingness in taking concerted action, however it must be accompanied by a collective mobilization around the growth objective. The next decade will be decisive for Morocco. Given the country’s vast potential and the coordination of the energy sector, the economy has the capacity to grow significantly. However, it could also miss its rendezvous with history if it fails to act now.

Becoming an emerging country begins with creating a solid base upon which exponential growth is dependent. Over the past fifteen years, Morocco has journeyed afar to lay the foundations of its edifice. At an institutional level, we have seen the creation of several organizations in various domains and the strengthening of their roles, with the prerogatives of the major ones being clearly defined in the latest 2011 constitution.

Despite established foundations, numerous obstacles are impeding economic transition to the acceleration phase. These hurdles can be eliminated by a general mobilization of all Moroccans around a transparent goal: A Reimagined Morocco as an emerging country in 2025. Among the challenges preventing economic transition is the lack of a “meta-goal” that allows the different operators to converge their interests, to work hand-in-hand, and to go beyond self-interests. By way of example, it sometimes happens that two or three public departments are working on the same subject, with no coordination whatsoever. On the private sector side, there are model national champions, such as the global phosphate producer OCP Group (Office Chérifien des Phosphates), which tries to mobilize an ecosystem to invest in the development of the human resources of regions in which they operate, and to promote innovation and entrepreneurship

In contrast, other “national champions” are less concerned about the common good, opting to take no part whatsoever in collaborating with a view to accelerating the development of the country. A flagrant example is that of the operators in the telecommunications sector. Supported by the telecommunications regulator in Morocco, they block VoIP (voice over IP) calls. This decision has jeopardized the business of thousands of self-employed people and startups who use Skype, WhatsApp or Google Hangout to communicate with those they work with abroad. And on top of that, the quality of the broadband service leaves much to be desired, with repeated outages, and finally, the traditional operator refusing to share the cable infrastructure with the two other operators, who find themselves obliged to invest pointlessly in new installations. A holistic mobilization around a “Reimagine Morocco” narrative will encourage both groups to focus their efforts and find a compromise between short-term financial interest and the common good.

Political parties must also play a role in the narrative, beginning by raising the level of debate among their leaders. In 2011, the political debate provoked a regained interest by the youth, driven by the pro-democracy 20 February Movement. Since then, unfortunately, we have witnessed the proliferation of squabbles and insults, amplified by videos and shocking images on social media that flout the unwritten rules of political civility. Mobilization of these representative forces will allow the debate to be elevated where both party leaders and their supporters are prompted to propose genuine social projects.

With this said, how will setting in place a strategy for nation branding by Morocco favor concerted action by emerging countries? Nation branding is to national projects what design is to innovation: a building block allowing all the stakeholders to see the project through the same lens and facilitating its subsequent marketing. The country needs to build a clear national brand or public perception, first at home and then abroad, of what is Morocco. German production, for example, is synonymous with “quality and rigor”: cars, uber-machines, and its academic system. Japan, for its part, is linked with “innovation and technology.” These are not arbitrarily developed clichés but the result of decades of work that has been coordinated and continued in tandem with promotional and reputational campaigns.

For Morocco, its nation branding strategy will constitute an opportunity for stakeholders (ministerial departments, private sector, diplomats, and universities) to open the dialogue and identify sources of blockage but also common areas of interest where collaboration can begin. Finally, a national brand will help facilitate better marketing of Moroccan products and services abroad, as well as strengthen Moroccan diplomacy by clarifying the strategic benefits of positioning oneself with the Kingdom of Morocco. These efforts, above all, will incentivize citizens to mobilize around this brand identity where they can act as everyday ambassadors in communicating about the economic and cultural advantages of their country.