Nearly four years after King Mohammed VI called for a New Development Model and after 18 months of intense work, the commission created for this purpose (CSMD) has delivered its recommendations. Moroccans can now imagine what the Kingdom will become by 2035. The Moroccan goal is clear: to consolidate the society project carried by the King, to reinforce the values of positive citizenship and the feeling of belonging to the Nation, while maintaining the assets Morocco currently enjoys. While becoming one of the rising African powerhouses, the Kingdom wants to take his development to a whole new level.
The time has come for Morocco to update its development model. A 170 pages report, as well as detailed thematic annexes covering all the important subjects were presented to King Mohammed VI on Tuesday, May 25, by the Special Commission on the Development Model (CSMD), thus drawing up the outlines of a new model.
Doubling GDP per capita, increasing the number of doctors per capita to reach WHO standards, reducing the share of informal employment to 20%, and increasing the participation rate of women to 45% are the main development goals that the New Development model aims to achieve by 2035.
Designed by Moroccans, with Moroccans, for Moroccans
No fancy strategy consulting firm here. The New model was designed by Moroccans, with Moroccans and for Moroccans, under the leadership of Mohammed VI. The document contains the major changes needed and concrete initiatives to adapt the development model to enable comprehensive and inclusive growth.
In figures, the New Model’s main areas of work could help the transition to a new level of annual GDP growth that could average 6% by 2025 and 7% by 2030.
The report, prepared by the 35-member commission, sets out a national ambition and proposes a “credible and achievable” path to change. However, It is not a “manual” for a governmental or partisan program, but rather a reflection that tends to make the promises of the constitution effective.
Therefore, the CSMD had to, as the Sovereign stated in his speech on August 20, 2019, fulfill a triple mission “of readjustment, anticipation, foresight to enable our country to approach the future with serenity and confidence”.
The CSMD report has become “a common reference point for all living forces in their diversity” and has been designed in three parts.
The first part of the report, entitled “Morocco today and the world to come”, draws up “an exhaustive inventory” of Morocco, measuring the country’s strengths and weaknesses, the second part is devoted to the method. In other words, what needs to be done to achieve change, and the third part is a roadmap.
Better sharing of wealth, addressing challenges of the future
This report addresses the shortcomings of the old development model, which had repeatedly revealed its inability to reduce wealth disparities while maintaining strong and stable growth. It puts the finger on the problem, identifying a series of obstacles that are at the root of the loss of development momentum and the weakness of its profitability. The report identifies four bottlenecks, including: lack of vertical coherence between the development vision and announced public policies; slow structural transformation of the economy affected by high input costs; limited capacity of the public sector to design and implement accessible and quality public services; and a sense of judicial insecurity and unpredictability.
To achieve its ambition and fundamental objectives, the NMD proposes four main areas of transformation: a dynamic and diversified economy that creates added value and jobs, a strengthened human capital that is better prepared for the future, opportunities for inclusion for all and a strengthened social link, and resilient territories that are the anchors of development. These are “the main strategic orientations for achieving ambition, meeting development objectives and winning the bets of the future,” the report reads.
Five challenges for 2035
On the other hand, and in order to promote the creation of value and quality jobs, the projects that are at the heart of the Model, such as the five selected bets and the structural reforms that accompany them, will need to be launched as early as 2022.
In figures, this is what it will cost to implement the NMD: in the start-up phase (2022-2025), additional public financing of around 4% of GDP annually, and by 2030, this level of public financing will rise to 10% of GDP at cruising speed.
Its financing will thus require the mobilization of substantial financial resources for its initiation and implementation. To this end, the CSMD called for a proactive financing strategy, approaching additional expenditures as investments with a view to creating “an inclusive virtuous dynamic guaranteeing sustainability”.
The New Model financing strategy therefore identified five structuring levers, calling for public and private financing, notably a fiscal policy aligned with the objectives of the NMD, an agile fiscal policy, which is in line with the medium- to long-term dynamics required by any development model, a more effective fiscal policy, a rapid start to the structural transformation of the economy, as well as conditions conducive to increasing national and international private investment.
