![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Morocco’s international development enterprise, the National Initiative for Human Development (INDH), aims to boost the economy and stimulate the integration of marginalised groups, including rural women. Has the INDH achieved social impact? Are attitudes changing toward women’s economic independence, literacy, numeracy, political participation, and overall freer participation in a society that has long disadvantaged women? This mixed-methods approach to impact evaluation compares rural women’s and men’s views toward democratisation and women’s empowerment in developing communities where INDH-supported argan oil cooperatives exist and in similar, undeveloped communities where they do not. Using two survey instruments tailored to women and men, the American-Moroccan research team collected quantitative and qualitative data through 829 surveys with randomly selected, overwhelmingly Amazigh (Berber) participants in fifty-four communities in the Atlas Mountains and their foothills. Results reveal the core tension of the INDH mission. While the impact of these programmes, or treatment, is clearer on women than on men—the men being profoundly conflicted—positive correlations exist between treatment and women earning money and viewing opportunity in their communities. At the same time, in some regards treatment adversely correlates to greater gender parity, and in crucial ways other variables, such as basic math skills, more strongly predict favourable attitudes than treatment. In effect, rather than transforming society, these INDH-funded programmes strengthen the state’s stability and control, giving just enough help to rural women to have a modest positive impact without eroding the bedrock of traditional rural society, which the argan tree poetically symbolises for Moroccans.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Fulbright Association under U.S. Scholar Grant 8365-MO. The first author and research team leader owes an immeasurable debt to the project participants and to her eight research assistants in the field, without whom this evaluation could not have been conducted. Recognition also goes to the second author, who served as a graduate research assistant and quantitative data analyst, to anonymous reviewers from the journal, and to colleagues in the United States and abroad and members of Moroccan civil society who supported the project, especially Jeanine Braithwaite, Harry Harding, Fatima Roumate, and Aicha Sakmassi.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Of twenty Arab countries, Morocco surpasses only Syria, Yemen, Sudan, and Djibouti. Somalia was not included in the report.
2. By comparison, the adult male illiteracy and economic participation rates are 31 percent and 75 percent respectively.
3. The video was removed from the 2M website with an apology issued two days later. The Hakkaoui Law on Violence Against Women, effective 12 September 2018, neither precisely defines domestic violence nor outlaws specific forms, such as marital rape.
4. Known by its French name and acronym, the Initiative Nationale pour le Développement Humain (INDH) has completed two phases, 2005–2010 and 2011–2015, and is planning its third. The United States Millennium Challenge Corporation committed $697.5 million to the original $3 billion total investment. Other foreign donors include the European Union, Saudi Arabia, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the UNDP. The World Bank loaned $300 million to the second phase.
5. Article Nineteen of the 2011 Constitution reads, in part, ‘The man and the woman enjoy, in equality, the rights and freedoms of civil, political, economic, social, cultural and environmental character […] The State works for the realization of parity between men and women’.
6. In the research design phase of this project, the 702 INDH-targeted rural communities were plotted using geographic informatics data.
7. The 2014 national census sets the population of Essaouira Province at 450,527.
8. Another nine grants were awarded to projects benefitting women in the Town of Essaouira. Monetary values are converted from Moroccan dirhams to U.S. dollars at the rates of .1207 for January 2014, .1043 for 2015, and .1007 for 2016.
9. To protect the environment, in 1998 UNESCO declared the Moroccan argan forest a biosphere reserve.
10. From ChapStick’s ‘age-defying’ lip balm and L’Oréal’s ‘EverSleek’ haircare (endorsed by Jennifer Lopez) to ‘wild’ concoctions at The Body Shop, argan oil-enriched beauty products flood the aisles of today’s retail stores.
11. Amazigh population totals in North African countries are hotly contested, especially in Morocco. The Moroccan government sets the proportion at 40 percent, though estimates by activists push it well into the ethnic majority, at 60–70 percent. The 2004 national census counted speakers of Amazigh languages, which vary by region. In the 2014 census, this metric was left out.
12. Inspired to preserve the argan forest, Moroccan chemist Zoubida Charrouf played a major role in scientifically proving argan’s value, refining the oil production process, improving oil quality, and launching the argan oil cooperative model.
13. Wages and daily outputs vary widely. A skilled worker can crack enough nuts to produce about one and a half kilos of kernels in a full day. Industry standards define a decent wage as $4 to $5 per kilo. A litre of oil requires approximately twenty hours of skilled manual labour.
14. Tourism accounted for more than $7 billion and over 7 percent of Morocco’s gross domestic product in 2015, second only to phosphates.
15. In 2010, Morocco’s Commission Nationale des Signes Distinctifs d’Origine et de Qualité protected argan oil with Geographical Indication status. Efforts to win this status in Europe have thus far failed.
16. In 2016, the ODCO created a mandatory local and national registry of cooperatives and a $100 one-time registration fee.
17. This project received approval in Morocco from INDH headquarters at the Ministry of Interior in Rabat, and the local government authorities and leaders (all men), the walis (provincial governors), caïds, pashas, sheikhs, and moqadems of the regions visited. The researchers thank these institutions and individuals for their support without implicating them in the results. This article represents only the views of its authors and was not reviewed by the INDH prior to submission. The University of Virginia granted IRB approval 2014-0354-00 to the research design and survey instruments. Colleagues in public policy, economics, social psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, and linguistics provided feedback on methodology and survey instruments, and individuals from the region piloted the instruments to test clarity and cultural sensitivity.
18. The research team leader provided transportation and paid assistants in the field 35 percent more than Moroccan census workers plus a meals allowance.
19. In the absence of pre- and post-testing, untreated communities constitute the baseline control group. For efficiency, given the nature of the terrain and the approval process for surveying the public, the researchers visited a larger number of untreated communities than treated communities to sample a balanced number of women and men in each.
20. Each woman received a small purse or bracelet; each man received a fountain pen.
21. The majority of participants had difficulty reporting household income, which is not unusual. Estimates were typically rough, possibly excluding some irregular pay for odd jobs and seasonal labour. Men were not inclined to include women’s earnings until prompted. For the period of this fieldwork, by Royal Decree n° 2.14.343 of 10 July 2014, the Moroccan Government fixed the minimum guaranteed agricultural salary (SMAG) at 66.56 dirhams, or $7.99, per day. The World Bank set the 2015 poverty line for Morocco at $3,030 per capita per year.
22. To measure attitudes about women’s financial independence, for example, the researchers asked all participants, ‘How important is it to you that when the girls in your family become women, they are free to spend money as they see fit?’ (rated from ‘not at all important’ to ‘very important’). Women were also asked, ‘How free are you to spend money as you see fit?’ (rated from ‘not at all free’ to ‘very free’). Men were also asked, ‘In your view, how acceptable is it for women to spend money as they see fit?’ (rated from ‘very unacceptable’ to ‘very acceptable’).
23. Where Y equals the odds ratio of the participant responding ‘Yes’ to a given Yes/No question, P is the probability of a ‘Yes’ response, X1 through X2 are the model’s control variables, ε is unavoidable random error:
24. Where equals the odds ratio of the participant giving a higher rating to a particular Likert-scale question, i indicates the possible responses, P is the probability of that response, X1 through X2 are the model’s control variables, ε is unavoidable random error:
25. Where Y is the percent allocated to a development priority in the values exercise and X1 through X2 are the model’s control variables, and ε is unavoidable random error:
26. A conservative approach was adopted with the hope that future research will refine the analytic precision.
27. Most of the dependent variables were Likert-scale ratings; therefore, ordinal logistic regressions were used and iteratively tested. Generally, coefficients were stable across all models; in the event that a coefficient gained or lost significance in a new model, the unstable coefficient was discarded. Models that resulted in unreliable F-values were entirely discarded.
28. For this reason, the research team leader chose not to identify by name the officials and cooperatives that assisted the project.
29. Communication with the cooperative director, 2–4 December 2014. A letter of support and a telephone call on the team’s behalf from the Moroccan-American Commission for Educational and Cultural Exchange in Rabat had no effect. The reports referenced are unknown.
30. Of the two non-functioning cooperatives, one had temporarily suspended operations due to the high cost of argan nuts. The other had no customers or purchase orders at the time.
31. Comments such as the following from a male participant were not uncommon,
Women can improve their lives if the conditions for living with dignity exist. Your project is good, but INDH programs should be monitored. A cooperative is supposed to be collective, but here, in reality, only the president or rather the director [her nephew] benefit.
32. The former secretary, demoted to cracking nuts, reported that cooperative managers had diluted argan oil with vegetable oil purchased at the souk (community marketplace) when demand far exceeded supply. Clients found out. She further confessed, ‘The other officers and I pressured the women to crack nuts for us at home, on the side. We pocketed the money. Now the matter is in the hands of the courts. I’ll probably go to prison’. Survey UB833KT, 29 December 2014. Others corroborated this information.
33. Having been told by the male director that the cooperative was closed that day, the women researchers paid a visit to confirm and found forty women cracking nuts. The overseer nervously urged the researchers to ignore the ‘stupid, illiterate women’ and to speak with him instead. The researchers approached the women only to realise that they had been silenced. Later, in private, the bold members described harsh conditions and reported rarely being paid, receiving ‘only a little money now and then’. ‘All of the women in the village are expected to work at the cooperative. We don’t even know the going price of argan oil’, one woman said. Survey WA459HF, 4 June 2015. Elsewhere, a former member of a cooperative managed by women told the team, ‘I worked there for a year and a half but I left because I never got paid. They kept telling me, “Later, later”. I worked all day, every day.’ Survey OL204FD, 10 January 2015.
34. Participants were eager to account for local women having been duped by promises of women’s empowerment and coerced into misleading outsiders. One young woman reported,
There used to be a women’s centre here where we made rugs, baskets, and embroidery. It was open for several years, but it closed three years ago. The caïd and others ran it. They told us to lie if someone asked us if we were paid. We never were. In the years I worked there all I ever got was 15 dirhams [$2]. Others got 50 dirhams.
35. After listening to one spokeswoman tout her cooperative’s literacy classes, the researchers randomly surveyed a member who said that after two years, she still hoped the cooperative would offer literacy classes one day. Survey PA372ST, 28 December 2014.
36. Survey NJ073KQ, 5 January 2015.
37. Survey BH663IW, 13 May 2015.
38. Survey RJ714VD, 14 May 2015.
39. Survey EK825LL, 17 May 2015.
40. Declined survey, Id Amrane, 6 June 2015.
41. Because the study focuses on treatment and cooperation was not guaranteed, the researchers concentrated time where cooperatives and community authorities accommodated them. In comparable untreated communities, if the same number of women and men were not available on the day of the visit, the researchers surveyed an equal number of both who met the criteria and swiftly moved on to the next village.
42. Survey RJ714VD, 14 May 2015.
43. Of the 361 men who worked, most performed non-salaried manual labour, much of which was informal and seasonal or otherwise irregular. With the exception of one imam, five schoolteachers, nineteen office workers, and twenty-six service workers (e.g. security guards, waiters), the overwhelming majority of men worked in the fields, in construction, at sea fishing off the coast of the Western Sahara, or they kept shop, sold goods in the street or at market, or performed a trade, such as blacksmithing or cutting hair.
44. Treatment, which encompasses the wider community, including unemployed women, did not predict greater freedom of mobility, whereas work did, and working women were more likely to live in treated communities. Quantitative methods capture these subtleties.
45. With 95 percent confidence, the data show that women in treated communities were 8 percent less likely never to vote and 3 percent more likely to vote often or always.
46. Survey JM739WX, 1 June 2015.
47. Survey OA102PT, 29 December 2014.
48. Survey FH037JI, 23 April 2015.
49. Survey AZ585GH, 31 December 2014.
50. Survey KX224PA, 9 December 2014.
51. Survey CC187KJ, 31 December 2014.
52. Survey HV328LC, 24 April 2015.
53. Survey MB076VO, 3 June 2015; and another representative comment, ‘At Sidi Bousehab there’s an argan cooperative, and sewing classes. The women there are resourceful’. Survey TY229NG, 23 May 2015.
54. After one year of literacy classes at the cooperative, the participant struggled to write the name of her village, but she did. Survey ZD185FU, 30 April 2015.
55. The researchers noted signs of normalised violence against women, including two instances of boys under the age of ten violently beating their mothers. On 12 June 2015, in the untreated village of Amalou, the team encountered an elderly woman beaten bloody in the face moments earlier by a teenaged boy who had accused her of letting her goats graze on his family’s argan trees. ‘New laws have led to no change in the villages’, a woman elsewhere observed. Survey GE004MA, 4 January 2015.
56. Survey SQ796WP, 10 May 2015.
57. Survey XU818IS, 6 June 2015. At no point did the researchers ask participants about violence. Women raised the issue themselves, at times in vague terms, at other times in graphic detail.
58. The women knew more about the reformed Moudawana than did the men. Women’s responses were richer and more active, whereas the men, who had less to say on the subject, focused largely on laws governing marriage and their impact on men. Of 154 knowledgeable women, forty-two (27 percent) cited the freedom to work outside the home as an example of change for women; thirty-eight women (25 percent) explained that men ‘can’t beat’ women anymore; thirty women (20 percent) cited a woman’s freedom to leave the house. In contrast, of seventy knowledgeable men, eighteen (27 percent) cited the increase in the minimum legal age for a woman to marry from fifteen to eighteen; sixteen men (23 percent) cited a woman’s right to initiate divorce.
59. One participant explained, ‘In some ways that’s good. Women can help their families. In other ways it’s bad, because it takes responsibility away from men’. Survey OY253TV, 16 December 2014.
60. Survey BM760LQ, 6 December 2014. The imam, who reported teaching his wife to read and write, provided contradictory responses to questions related to work and money. When probed, he explained,
My position in the village is delicate. Illiterate women can’t manage money, and here I don’t approve of women working outside the home, around men. But I want my daughters to grow up and leave this village to find good jobs.
61. Numbers in transliterated Amazigh speech represent sounds unexpressed by the Roman alphabet.
62. Survey IE747EF, 24 April 2015.
63. Survey AM123HT, 12 May 2015. Another man rejected women’s freedom, ‘because once a woman has the ability to do whatever she wants, she might resort to dishonest activities that ruin her reputation’. Survey GA324TN, 31 May 2015.
64. Survey UD615CU, 4 May 2015. Many men referred to men’s value, worth, or role.
65. Survey SK0008VB, 10 May 2015.
66. Survey IK439GW, 2 January 2015.
67. Survey YA850JA, 27 May 2015.
68. Survey DU210PL, 7 January 2015.
69. These goals ranged from buying livestock to opening a shop; 94 percent of men’s goals were work-related.
70. Survey FN337BV, 27 May 2015.
71. Women in treated communities were 3–45 times more likely to spend a disproportionately large amount on women’s education and training while rating their general attitudes toward women working as low. Overall, 38 percent of women rated their own ability to work as low and spent a disproportionately high amount on women’s education and training. Treatment and numeracy skills were the only two statistically significant controls affecting this combination of responses.
72. One member’s niece who filled in at a cooperative reported, ‘The cooperative told my aunt that she would lose her place if she didn’t find a replacement while she had a baby’. Survey YT863OI, 10 December 2014. Similar stories were documented in other treated communities.
73. Survey SX676TY, 26 May 2015.
74. In most cases, cooperatives were either unable or unwilling to provide the ages of their members. The median age was fifty-three at one.
75. Survey QE321IZ, 14 January 2015.
76. Survey UB833KT, 29 December 2014.
77. Survey PP899AW, 6 January 2015.
78. Holding a baccalaureate and earning a fair salary ($365 per month), he reported that under no circumstances would he permit his future wife to leave home. He then qualified his answer, ‘only if the house is on fire’. Survey IM055BO, 9 January 2015.
79. Survey KQ835ZZ, 7 June 2015.
80. Survey HA393AM, 14 June 2015.
81. In the most recent assessments, 79 percent of Moroccans performed below the lowest performance benchmark in reading, compared to an average of 13 percent for other low-income and middle-income countries that administered the same assessment; 74 percent did so in math compared to 20 percent for the other countries.