GLOBAL COOPERATION NEWSLETTER
August 2013
In this issue:
 Morocco’s universal social protection model: Components, paradoxes andchallenges
 Protecting the rights of older persons
 Towards a path of sustainable development
 Useful resources and links


Featured article: “Morocco’s universal social protection model: Components,
paradoxes and challenges by Driss Guerraoui

Driss Guerraoui is the President of the Middle East and Northern Africa Region - MENA Region of ICSW andis Secretary General of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council of Morocco.

Located in the north-west corner of Africa, with a population of over 32 million, Morocco regained
its independence in 1956 when the French protectorate was ended, and since that time the country
has, step-by-step, been building its national welfare system composed of several elements andknown today as the Moroccan model of universal social protection.
I. The building blocks of the universal social protection system of Morocco.
The system is characterized by 10 clusters of programmes and social protection schemes involvingsocial sectors in the broad sense. It includes:
1. Programmes aimed at promoting quality education so as to ensure the social and professional
integration of young people. The programmes envision universal access to education, continuous
improvements in its quality, the prevention of school drop-outs and the fight against illiteracy.
2. Plans and programmes aimed at improving the public health situation through a three-pronged
approach:a) The gradual extension of medical coverage for employees in the public and private sectors
through the establishment of a compulsory health insurance scheme for employees in those sectors
called AMO (about a third of the population), a system of medical coverage for the poor called
RAMED (8.5 million people), and a plan for the benefit of artisans, independent professionals andPage 1 of 8

students (one-third of the population). The first two schemes became effective in 2005, but the last
one has not yet emerged.
b) The development of priority public health programmes focusing on prevention and the fightagainst disease.
c) The expansion of the supply of health care for the population.
3. The development of a diversified social housing policy, whose objectives are the reduction of the
housing shortage (by 150,000 housing units per year), the eradication of slums and the fightagainst substandard housing. In that context a programme called "Cities Without Slums" wasoperational from 2004 to 2010, benefiting 270,000 households and involving 82 cities.
4 - Promoting productive employment
The promotion of employment in the private sector is carried out through a programme called
Idmaj; improving the balance between training and employment is done through a programmecalled Taahil; a programme called Mokawalati supports the creation of new businesses by young
people. There are also programmes aimed at better management of the labour market. In addition,
economic and social partners and the Government arrived at a consensus in July 2013 on theestablishment of compensation for the loss of employment for employees in the private sector who
have lost their job.
5 – A national sewerage and waste water treatment programme, which aims to achieve a 80% rateof network sanitation coverage and the reduction of pollution by 60% by 2015.
6 - Programmes aimed at increasing rural access to basic social services such as the Global Water
Supply Programme for Rural Populations (PAGER), General Rural Electrification (PERG),
Construction of Rural Roads (PNCRR), integrated rural development and coastal development.
7 - Programmes aimed at boosting social outreach instruments through structures and institutions
supporting national efforts, including the development of micro-credit, the activities of the Social
Development Agency, and the agencies dealing with the North, the East and the South.
8 –Supporting commodity prices through a compensation fund. This support covers sugar, domestic
flour, butane gas and diesel fuel.
9 - The development of specific programmes aimed at disadvantaged groups that are either
excluded or discriminated against (children in situations of abandonment or abuse, female heads ofpoor households, divorced women receiving alimony, persons with disabilities, children
disadvantaged owing to their backgrounds in need of support to encourage school attendance).
In that context, a Support Fund for Social Cohesion was created. It provides funding for school
education through the Injaz programme, which in 2012-2013 benefited about 825,000 students
and 475,000 households, a health care programme, programmes supporting low-income
populations in mountainous areas, youth employment, social housing and human development.
10 - Supporting associations working in the social field and solidarity-based programmes.
11 - The National Initiative for Human Development (NIHD), which was announced by HM the Kingof Morocco on March 18, 2005
This initiative includes four components: two nation-wide programmes -- one that is cross-cutting
and one aimed at combating insecurity, and two regional programmes aimed at fighting social
exclusion in urban areas and fighting poverty in rural areas.
For the period 2006-2010 the NIHD allocated a budget of 10 billion dirhams, 6 billion funded
Page 2 of 8through the State budget, and 2 billion each generated from local sources and from international
cooperation. The beneficiaries were 403 rural communes whose poverty rate exceeded 30% and
264 urban districts in 13 cities identified on the basis of the existing shortage of basic social
infrastructure, along with high rates of school dropouts, high unemployment, the existence of slums,
poverty and low income, high rates of the exclusion of women and youth, and the lack ofopportunities for training and integration.
In view of the encouraging results in the fight against poverty, insecurity, exclusion andmarginalization, it was decided to extend the initiative, with a second phase covering the period
2011-2015. This extension covers 701 rural districts and 530 urban neighbourhoods with a budgetof 17 billion dirhams.
II-The paradoxes of the social protection policy
Despite the diversity of those programmes and the large public effort to enhance social welfare andsolidarity, Morocco faces a chronic shortage in many vital social sectors and the benefits of social
protection are far from universal.
Thus, according to data from the latest annual report of the High Commissioner for Planning for theyear 2012 on the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, key social indicators showthat the rate of neonatal mortality is 30 per 1000, the maternal mortality rate is 112 per 100,000
births, the illiteracy rate is 39.7%, the enrolment rate of 15-24 year olds is 84.6% and that, evenwith an increase in the household income by 6.4% between 2000 and 2012, about 6.3 million
people must be classified as poor and vulnerable, the gap between the rich and the poor has
increased, and one out of three people in urban areas and two out of three in rural areas feel poor.
Moreover, only 10% of the Moroccan population is covered by a pension scheme and 56.5% of the
population is not covered by any health insurance plan, although the number of beneficiaries in theprivate sector covered by AMO and in the public sector covered by the RAMED has shown acontinuous and significant growth.
Those realities and paradoxes show that the country has up to now failed to contain the social
deficiencies existing in various forms, although many social protection mechanisms were introducedin Morocco already in 1960s. They reveal that the State has been unable to raise the level of
effectiveness of social programmes, which nevertheless consume more than 50% of the national
budget . Despite the existence of a large body of institutions, mechanisms, local, regional andnational programmes and parallel efforts on the part of the State and civil society, a comprehensive
national dynamic has not emerged, which would require the mobilization and joint action of trades
union and political actors, as well as economic and administrative elites. Social actors face achallenge: how to improve the collective management of all aspects of social protection
programmes, while at the same time encouraging the Government to develop a new generation ofreforms intended to define possible future features of our national universal floor of social
protection
III- Social challenges for the future and the emerging issues
The extension of social protection in Morocco depends on the country’s ability to address a numberof challenges that will determine its future.
1 - The challenge of demographic and social changes and their analysis
The nature of those challenges lies in the fact that Moroccan society is in the midst of , on the one
hand, a demographic change that is creating a new balance between the city and countryside andbetween such population groups as youth and older persons, and on the other hand, other social
processes that are taking place and have led to the emergence of new types of poverty and newpoor, mainly composed of disadvantaged workers, employees with limited income or working under
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a fixed-term contract, retirees, workers in the informal sector, abandoned children, single mothers
in difficult circumstances, peasants without arable land, rural migrants from the countryside to themajor industrial cities in precarious jobs, migrants who have lost their rights, as well as broad social
categories of people from the middle classes, especially those in large cities ruined by highindebtedness and other consequences of the crisis.
What is common to those new social phenomena, however, is the existing lack of knowledge about
them and the absence of evidence-based studies..
That challenge is likely to encourage institutions involved in strategic studies, as well as universities
and national research centres, to produce a new generation of sociologists trained to carry out theanalysis of those phenomena, with a view to understanding them better and better monitoring theinitial impulses.
.
2 - Setting a more realistic poverty threshold
Many scholars and practitioners agree that an indicator based on one dollar per person per day
cannot reasonably be used to define the poverty line and thus determine the number of the poor.
Why is it necessary to rethink that threshold?
The main reason is that the consumer basket of Moroccan households has changed tremendously.
Indeed, now Moroccans consume relatively more fruit and vegetables, meat, milk and dairy
products than in the past. More and more of their income is spent on children's education,transportation and housing. However, the prices of all those products and services, which are notsubsidized by the State, regularly go up while the level of remuneration in the private and public
sectors lags far behind.
Therefore, in the face of the rising cost of living, even a two dollars per day per person thresholdcannot ensure meeting all of the basic needs of Moroccan households. In that light and despite real
on-going efforts, including the efforts of the High Commission for Planning, the national statisticalsystem should be more proactive in finding innovative solutions to reflect the social reality of
today’s Morocco.
3 – Addressing rigidities in income distribution
If Morocco wishes to reduce the amount of poverty, the inequality between rich and poor must be
addressed. The share of consumption of poor households has been stagnant. The State has been
trying to reduce such inequalities through actions of three types: 1) reforming the taxation ofindividuals 2) strengthening various welfare programmes and solidarity-based solutions, and 3)
promoting social change through education and training.
However, such policies and programmes remain limited in their impact in the absence of a moreequal and proactive distribution of the fruits of economic growth and wealth in general.
4 - Rethinking governanceTo make the extension of social protection durable and sustainable for the entire national
community, three challenges must be addressed:- The extension should be implemented gradually in a collaborative effort shared by all
stakeholders;- Targeting used in various social security schemes should be pro-poor and aimed at protecting thepoor and not the rich, who may gain from subsidized public spending;- The redesign of the mechanisms of solidarity should be done through a bold tax reform based ona fair and equitable contribution effort, coupled with an uncompromising fight against corruption,
fraud and tax evasion.
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Finally, because funding is central to meeting the challenge of universal social protection, the tax
reform priorities should be based on voluntary incentive mechanisms that promote and encourage
the creation of new wealth, which is the real basis for and critical source of sustainable financing for
generalizing social protection.
In the context of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council of Morocco, especially the "NewSocial Charter", which its General Assembly adopted at its meeting in November 2011, theextension of social protection constitutes a part of a new generation of economic and social humanrights, around which a convergence should be built and “Grand Social Contracts” should beconcluded between all Moroccan actors and forces.
In a certain sense, such Grand Social Contracts constitute the true cement of social cohesion andsustainable human development and the most appropriate institutional framework in which toconsolidate the essential components of national universal social protection.
And finally, a fundamental question: Why, despite the existing problems and challenges, does theinitiative of introducing national floors of social protection remain a viable option?

The key reason lies in the positive external effects of the initiative itself. Indeed, the universal
floors of social protection are bound to create for people the conditions needed for genuine
citizenship (providing a minimum income, basic medical coverage, decent work, etc.), promoting anenvironment of political stability and social peace, which is required for entrepreneurship and theresulting creation of the wealth needed to promote the investment that creates jobs and to sustain
solidarity financially.
In doing so, the initiative of universal social protection floors helps to raise the overall performanceof the economy and society and strengthen social bonds, togetherness and consequently social
cohesion. Even if that were the only positive element, it would generate resources and financing,making it a viable policy option.
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect views of the ICSWManagement Committee.

 Protecting the rights of older persons
The 4th session of the Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) on Ageing took place from 12 to 15
August 2013 at UN Headquarters in New York. The OEWG on Ageing was established by the UN
General Assembly by resolution 65/182 on 21 December 2010. The purpose of the OEWG has been
identified as strengthening the protection of the human rights of older persons; the Working Groupwas mandated to consider the existing international framework of the human rights for older
persons and to identify possible gaps and how best to address them, including by considering thefeasibility of further instruments and measures. The first two sessions of the OEWG were convened
in 2011, and the 3rd session took place in New York a year ago in 2012.
Despite its undeniable importance and wide-ranging socio-economic consequences, population
ageing is one of the issues that has not been addressed in the framework of the Millennium
Development Goals. In that light the role of the OEWG as a new and important international forum
on ageing and development should be recognized, particularly given the fact that ageing presents achallenge not only for the developed countries but also for the developing world. Since theinception of the Working Group the discussions have covered numerous political and socioeconomic aspects of population ageing at the national, regional and international levels,
highlighting both emerging issues and opportunities presented by ageing, but always dovetailingaround its original declared objective—how to protect better the rights and interests of older
persons.
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The 4th session of the OEWG did not achieve any breakthroughs regarding the key issue on thetable—what new legal instruments, if any, are needed in a contemporary world to protect older
persons. But the discussions were quite illuminating. The call was repeated by delegates of thedeveloped countries to focus efforts on the effective implementation of the existing MadridInternational Plan of Action on Ageing adopted by the Second World Assembly on Ageing in 2001-admittedly, not legally binding, but nevertheless an important international document. By andlarge the developed countries representatives maintained their previous position that the whole
range of existing internationally recognized human rights standards and principles also cover andprotect older persons without discrimination, and that the implementation and protection gaps—
even if they do exist-- are not of normative origin, and therefore, there is no need for a new legal
instrument. The disagreements became clear when the representatives of most developing
countries and civil society organizations, along with many experts invited for the panel discussionsorganized within the format of the OEWG,, did not share such optimism of their counterparts fromthe developed countries. However, their arguments in favour of the new legal instrument could notsway the discussions and break the political stalemate. It was obvious that many delegates hadstrong instructions from their capitals to prevent the emergence of the new Convention on therights of older persons, at least for now.
The ICSW participated in the deliberations, with an official statement and also providing ad hoccomments during the discussion, making specific suggestions on how to move the process forward
for the benefit of older persons. Proving that the new legal instrument is economically feasible
would be an important step forward to convince the sceptics. The importance of clarifying the scopeand content of human rights norms was stressed, given the fact that non-implementation of theexisting standards is rampant, even though in many cases and particularly in developing countries,
these standards are themselves quite low, remaining inadequate for the effective protection ofolder persons. There is a need to consider a variety of policy tools and measures that could serve
as a bridge and precursor to a new legal instrument. Better understanding of the current situation
as it pertains to the human rights of older persons, as well as a clearer vision of potential options
and existing trade-offs, helps in an evaluation of further steps required to overcome the existing
inadequacies of social protection of older persons, as does strengthening the coherence of policy
efforts at all levels.
The text of the official ICSW statement could be accessed at:
http://social.un.org/ageing-working-group/csostatementfourth.shtml
 Towards a path of sustainable development
The new report called An Action Agenda for Sustainable Development produced by the
Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) takes its cue from the Rio+20 Summit, placing
poverty reduction within the broader context of sustainable development. The SDSN was launchedin 2012 in a hope to put forward “an integrated, concise, science-based, and action-oriented
agenda for the world”. The present report summarizes the main conclusions of the discussions on
the key issues of sustainable development as carried out in a broader network of thematic groups.
According to the report, the world has changed profoundly since 2000 when the Millennium
Declaration and the MDGs were adopted. The coming fifteen-year period, 2015-2030 will bedifferent from the MDG period ending in 2015 owing to five shifts that have occurred: the feasibilityof ending extreme poverty in all its forms; the drastically increased human impact on the physical
Earth; rapid technological change; increasing inequality; and a growing diffusion and complexity of
governance. The challenges we face today will expand dangerously unless there is an urgent andradical change of course. “The world needs an operational sustainable development framework thatcan mobilize all key actors (national and local governments, civil society, business, science andacademia) in every country to move away from the “business-as usual trajectory towards asustainable development path.” Such a framework, coupled with the Sustainable Development
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Goals, should identify the main objectives and strategies needed to make this shift, presenting alimited number of priorities and associated goals to make it more clear and effective.
Underscoring four key normative concepts as pillars of sustainable development path, – the right todevelopment for every country; human rights and social inclusion; convergence of living standards
across countries, and shared responsibilities and opportunities -- the report identifies the following
10 interconnected priority challenges:
1. End Extreme Poverty Including Hunger: End extreme poverty in all its forms, including
hunger, child stunting, malnutrition, and food insecurity; and support highly vulnerable
countries (MDGs 1-7).
2. Achieve Development with Planetary Boundaries: All countries have a right todevelopment that respects planetary boundaries, ensures sustainable production andconsumption patterns, and helps to stabilize the global population by mid-century.
3. Ensure Effective Learning for All Children and Youth for Life and Livelihood (fromearly childhood development programmes to access to continuous lifelong learning for all
youth and adults).
4. Achieve Gender Equality, Social Inclusion and Human Rights for All: Ensure genderequality, human rights, the rule of law, and universal access to public services. Reduce
relative poverty and other inequalities that cause social exclusion. Prevent and eliminate
violence and exploitation, especially for women and children.
5. Achieve Health and Well-being at All Ages: Achieve universal health coverage at every
stage of life, with particular emphasis on primary health services, including reproductive
health, to ensure that all people receive quality health services without suffering financial
hardship. Promote policies aimed at helping individuals make healthy and sustainabledecisions regarding the individual or social dimensions of health.
6. Improve Agriculture Systems and Raise Rural Prosperity. Covers improvement offarming practices and rural infrastructure, and access to resources for food production toincrease productivity and reduce environmental impact.
7. Empower Inclusive, Productive and Resilient Cities: Make all cities socially inclusive,
economically productive, environmentally sustainable, secure and resilient to climate change.
Promote effective city governance.
8. Curb Human–Induced Climate Change and Ensure Sustainable Energy: Curb
greenhouse gas emissions from energy, industry, agriculture, the built environment andland-use change to ensure a peak of global CO2 emissions by 2020 and to head off rapidly
growing dangers of climate change. Promote sustainable energy for all.
9. Secure Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity, and Ensure Good Management of
Water and Other Natural Resources. Sustainable management to support inclusive
economic and human development.
10. Transform Governance for Sustainable Development. Includes transparency,
accountability, access to information, participation, an end to tax and secrecy havens, andPage 7 of 8

greater efforts to stamp out corruption. The international rules governing international
finance, trade, corporate reporting, technology, and intellectual property are madeconsistent with achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
These ten sustainable development challenges must be addressed at the global, regional,
national, and local scales, forming ”a plausible basis for framing the SDGs to trigger practicalsolutions” that governments, private sector, and civil society can pursue with high priority.
For further details please go to:
http://www.sustainabledevelopment2015.org/index.php/uncsd-official-docs/sdgs-news/1358sdsn-releases-post-2015-report-an-action-agenda-for-sustainable-development
Useful resources and links.

Parliaments Preparing for the International Day of Democracy - Parliaments from aroundthe world are planning activities to mark the sixth International Day of Democracy (IDD) on 15
September 2013. This year’s theme “Strengthening Voices for Democracy” seeks to promote
freedom of expression and encourage people from all sectors of society to get involved in politics.
Over 90 parliaments have participated in this global event since it was proclaimed through United
Nations General Assembly resolution 62/7.
An Inter-Parliamentary Union contest inviting people around the world to share their stories on how
they are making their voices heard is also being held to mark IDD. The winning entries will receive
an Amazon Kindle loaded with e-books about democracy. For more details on the competition andother information on how to take part in the International Day of Democracy, go to
www.ipu.org/idd.
Assessing Progress on Poverty Eradication
A report released by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (A/68/183)
focuses on progress and challenges as well as major policy measures to reduce poverty, andprovides an overview of recent activities undertaken by the United Nations agencies to implement
the system-wide Plan of Action for the Second United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty(2008-2017). The selection of “Full employment and decent work for all” as the mission of theSecond Decade underscored the recognition that poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon that
extends beyond income poverty and reflects lack of both opportunity and capability. There are lessthan 1,000 days remaining before the 2015 target date, so it is particularly critical to accelerate
progress in regions that are lagging behind.
For more details: http://www.un.org/Docs/journal/asp/ws.asp?m=A/68/183
The content of this Global Newsletter may be freely reproduced or cited provided the source isacknowledged. Views do not necessarily represent policies of ICSW.
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