The impact of migration policies on civil society actors’ efforts to improve migrants’ access to social and economic rights in Morocco

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses the influence of European migration externalisation policies on civil society initiatives promoting migrants’ rights in Morocco. By looking at the nature of NGOs’ interventions that aim to benefit migrants’ social and economic rights, the paper attempts to uncover the contradictions inherent in the implementation of so-called rights-based approaches to migration management in a context marked by inequality, uneven social development and authoritarian rule. The Moroccan example shows how the EU’s efforts have promoted a juridical, administrative and discursively justifiable policy framework in Morocco, in which NGOs could successfully deliver humanitarian aid and advocate for vulnerable migrants’ rights to life. At the same time, however, the underlying rationale of distinguishing between the rights of legal and irregular migrants hampers NGOs in promoting a more inclusive approach concerning migrants as target populations of social development policies in the country. This is compounded by a national political context marked by limited opportunities for civil society participation in policy-making processes. By describing the dilemmas created through these tensions, this paper aims to draw attention to overlooked connections between development policies and externalisation measures in the Global South.

KEYWORDS:

• Morocco
• civil society
• migration-development nexus
• social rights
• Sub-Saharan African migrants

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers, as well as Aysen Üstübici, for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

List of Abbreviations

EU	=	European Union
GAMM	=	Global Approach to Migration Management
IOM	=	International Organisation For Migration
NGO	=	Non-Governmental Organisation
RBA	=	Rights-Based Approach
MSF	=	Médecins Sans Frontières
UNHCR	=	United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees
UNDP	=	United Nations Development Programme
UNICEF	=	United Nations Fund for Children
UNIFEM	=	United Nations Development Fund for Women

Notes

1 The exact number of Sub-Saharan African migrants in Morocco is difficult to estimate, but there are indications that it is growing. By 2008, AMERM (2008) estimated the number of migrants as oscillating between 3,000 and 8,000. In 2014, however, already over 20,000 migrants from nations south of the Sahara were registered through a one-off legalisation procedure organised by the Moroccan government (GADEM 2016). The IOM (2017) has recently estimated the number of Sub-Saharan African migrants to be around 40,000.

2 Morocco is still struggling with very uneven development in rural and urban areas and high levels of inequality within the country. It ranks 126th in the Human Development Index (out of 188 countries) and is particularly affected by maternal health issues and mortality rates at birth. The country struggles with great structural development problems, such as unemployment, uneven access to education and health services in rural and urban areas, and housing problems, just to name a few (UNDP 2016).

3 While Lauth (2012) shows that scholars have differed in their definition of authoritarian regimes, he cites Linz (1975, 264) as influential in distinguishing three characteristics of authoritarian regimes: limited pluralism, limited political participation (or de-politicisation) and the legitimisation of the regime through mentalities and values rather than ideologies. In this sense, both Cavatorta (2016) and Dalmasso (2018) show for example that Morocco still represents an authoritarian regime despite its new constitutional reforms. These scholars argue that reforms have not resulted in a weakening of the monarchy, a real separation of powers or accountability of those in charge. Instead, the ruling structures are characterised by a clientelist and repressive government (Cavatorta 2016, 86) and participation without representation (Dalmasso 2018, 198)

4 Even though a range of foreign policy objectives in Africa may have driven the country to shift its migration policies in this sense (Cherti and Collyer 2015; Natter 2014), it is remarkably one of the first northern African so-called ‘transit countries’ to have made a clear connection between development and migrants’ rights in its official policy statements.

5 In 2015, Garcia Andrade (2015, 131) found documentation about a total of 25 projects in the field of migration funded by the EU in Morocco for a total of more than €20 million. However, there is no clear information about how much of these funds were dedicated to social protection measures for vulnerable migrants and/or to facilitating their access to basic social rights, such as health and education. Furthermore, I have not found information as to which migrants are targeted where, and whether only those with regularised administrative status are concerned by these measures.

6 Because of the ethical and logistical difficulties of conducting surveys with vulnerable population groups, such as undocumented migrants and human rights activists, I have refrained from doing so. Likewise, I was not able to get access to legal documentation describing rights claims by migrants themselves, which could certainly have benefited the argument presented here.

7 Elements of the policy-making rationale inherent in the GAMM characterised bilateral and multilateral relations between Morocco and EU member states even before its implementation (Belguendouz 2009). However, through its formal establishment, the GAMM exemplifies an EU policy initiative which follows an international trend to ‘manage migration’ across national boundaries and through multinational partnerships and agreements (Piper 2008). This policy initiative relies heavily on policies which are designed to transfer and diversify border control and migration management to neighbouring and ‘transit’ countries in Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia on the one hand, and by discouraging labour migration more generally through increased economic aid to origin countries on the other hand

8 ‘Transit discourse’ refers to the supposition that due to increasing migration controls, migrants will be travelling overland and sea and through numerous countries in North Africa, Turkey and Eastern Europe on their way to European Union countries. It is a term coined by policy makers in the EU and has been used particularly in the context of the implementation of border enforcement and controls rather than describing an analytically useful depiction of migration movements in Africa, because it does not generally take account of the great variety of stop-overs, routes and ways of travelling which characterise contemporary migration movements in Africa (Collyer, Düvell, and de Haas 2012).

9 The National Initiative for Human Development’s main objective is to improve economic and social conditions for the poor. The project was officially launched after the royal speech on May 18, 2005 and is based on three main themes: 1. Addressing the social deficit of the urban slum and rural communities most in need, 2. encouraging income-generating activities, and 3. responding to the essential needs of people in difficult situations

10 During this time, I was working in the development sector in Rabat in a donor agency and had frequent exchanges with the directors of most international NGOs working in the city. In our meetings, migration was never discussed as a priority of intervention but frequently referred to as a ‘humanitarian crisis’. Project proposals from national NGOs which wanted to work with migrant populations were rarely funded by my organisation – or any other international development NGO I knew of – because it was not considered a development priority in the Moroccan context at that time.