Morocco Of Territories: The 2026 Legislative Elections And The Urgency Of A New Territorial Convergence Policy

The September 23, 2026 legislative elections should constitute much more than an ordinary electoral event. They should open a national debate on the quality of the state, the effectiveness of public action and, above all, the ability of the political system to reduce the territorial divides that continue to shape citizens’ everyday experiences. Moroccan authorities have been preparing for the 2026 legislative elections since 2025, presenting them as a major milestone in the institutional life of the Kingdom (Kingdom of Morocco, 2025). (Morocco’s Interior Minister Holds Two Meetings with Political Party Leaders on Upcoming Legislative Elections).

The fundamental question is therefore not simply who will govern Morocco after September 2026, but what Morocco will be governed. The next government should be assessed not only on its ability to preserve macroeconomic stability, attract investment, and manage major national projects, but also on its capacity to reduce the distances between center and periphery, metropolis and mountain, city and countryside, and between areas strongly connected to national and international markets and those that remain insufficiently integrated into development networks.

This question is all the more urgent because Morocco has undergone considerable transformation over several decades. The improvement of infrastructure, the development of highways, railways, ports, industrial and logistics platforms, and the emergence of new urban centers have profoundly altered the Kingdom’s economic geography. Yet material modernization has not everywhere translated into equivalent convergence in social and economic opportunities. The OECD emphasizes that territorial disparities remain a structural challenge and that the concentration of economic activity, skilled employment, and investment in certain poles continues to weigh on the country’s territorial balance (OECD, 2024a, 2024b). (OECD Economic Surveys: Morocco 2024).

The contemporary Moroccan problem is therefore no longer merely one of growth, but of the geography of growth. National growth can be statistically satisfactory while profound differences persist in access to education, healthcare, employment, mobility, digital infrastructure, and public services. The OECD notes, in particular, that place of birth and place of residence continue to strongly influence individual trajectories and that rural populations generally have more limited access to certain quality public services (OECD, 2024a). (OECD Economic Surveys: Morocco 2024 — Key Policy Insights).

It is precisely from this perspective that the need to move from a “Morocco of centers” to a “Morocco of territories” should be understood. This does not mean artificially opposing Rabat, Casablanca, Tangier, Marrakech, or Fez to small towns, rural areas, mountains, oases, and peripheral regions. Rather, it means building a territorial system in which major centers continue to play their role as economic engines while other territories also possess the institutional, human, financial, and infrastructural means necessary to develop their own potential.

Morocco already possesses some of the necessary instruments. The 2011 Constitution established regionalization and affirmed the principles of free administration, cooperation, and solidarity among territorial authorities (Kingdom of Morocco, 2011). The organic laws of 2015 further specified the organization of regions and other territorial authorities. The National Charter on Administrative Deconcentration sought to bring administration closer to users. The New Development Model (NDM), meanwhile, placed territorial transformation among the essential dimensions of Morocco’s development toward 2035 (CSMD, 2021).

The Moroccan paradox is therefore that of a country possessing a relatively ambitious institutional architecture, but whose territorial effectiveness remains uneven. The real challenge for the next legislature will be to transform the principles of advanced regionalization into an effective policy of territorial convergence.

From National Development to Territorial Development

For a long time, development policy was conceived primarily at the national level. The objective was to modernize infrastructure, industrialize the economy, develop metropolitan areas, attract foreign investment, improve trade, and strengthen Morocco’s integration into the global economy. This strategy has produced undeniable results. Morocco now possesses strategic infrastructure that constitutes important comparative advantages in the Mediterranean and African spaces.

However, national infrastructure is not automatically territorial policy. A highway may connect two metropolitan areas without profoundly transforming the living conditions of the populations located between them. A port may become a powerful export engine without the surrounding territories capturing a sufficient share of the value created. An industrial zone may generate employment while simultaneously increasing the attraction of skilled workers toward a few dominant economic poles.

The paradigm shift therefore consists in moving from an essentially infrastructural conception of development toward a territorial, human, and productive conception. Territory should no longer be viewed merely as a space in which national policies are implemented, but as an actor possessing specific resources, skills, history, institutions, social networks, and comparative advantages.

This approach broadly corresponds to contemporary OECD recommendations. The National Urban Policy Review of Morocco emphasizes the need to strengthen capacities at the national, regional, and local levels, improve coordination, and reduce territorial disparities by making greater use of the potential of different categories of cities and of the interdependencies between urban and rural areas (OECD, 2025). (National Urban Policy Review of Morocco).

The NDM advocates a comparable logic. The Special Commission on the New Development Model (2021) argues that Morocco must unlock the potential of its territories, improve the quality of public services, strengthen human capital, and build a more inclusive and balanced development model. Territory thus becomes a constitutive dimension of development rather than merely an administrative variable.

The real political question therefore becomes: how can we ensure that every territory is capable of creating value, retaining its talent, and providing its citizens with dignified living conditions?

Multidimensional Poverty: Looking at Morocco Through the Lens of Territories

One of the most important advances in Morocco’s recent public policy has been the improvement of statistical knowledge concerning territorial inequalities. In 2025, the High Commission for Planning published a new multidimensional poverty map that makes it possible to move beyond an exclusively monetary approach to poverty. This methodology takes into account several dimensions of living conditions, including education, health, housing, and access to basic infrastructure (HCP, 2025a, 2025b). (High Commission for Planning — Multidimensional Poverty Mapping).

This methodological evolution is fundamental. Poverty is not simply a lack of income; it is also the inability to access certain essential opportunities. A household may be slightly above a monetary poverty threshold while suffering from considerable distance from healthcare facilities, limited access to water or sanitation, low educational attainment, or poor connectivity.

HCP data also show a substantial improvement in the national situation. Multidimensional poverty declined sharply between 2014 and 2024, representing an important positive development (HCP, 2025a). Yet the major significance of HCP’s poverty mapping lies precisely in showing that national averages can conceal extremely different local realities. Vulnerabilities are often concentrated in certain rural areas, municipalities, and territories far removed from major centers (HCP, 2025b). (High Commission for Planning — Multidimensional Poverty Mapping).

This knowledge should now transform the way public budgets are designed. Morocco today has the data necessary to move from a relatively uniform distribution of resources toward a logic of differentiated financing based on territorial needs.

The country should therefore establish a genuine National Territorial Convergence Budget, based on multidimensional indicators. Territories displaying the greatest deficits in education, healthcare, employment, mobility, connectivity, or access to public services should benefit from compensation mechanisms and priority investment.

Such a policy would not constitute a policy of permanent assistance. It would be a policy of equalizing opportunities.

Advanced Regionalization: The Institution Exists; It Must Now Be Empowered

The 2011 Constitution marked an important turning point in Morocco’s territorial organization. Its Title IX is devoted to territorial authorities and affirms that their organization is based on the principles of free administration, cooperation, and solidarity (Kingdom of Morocco, 2011). The Constitution also establishes that territorial authorities are legal entities governed by public law and that they possess their own competencies, shared competencies, and transferred competencies.

This architecture was further developed through the 2015 organic laws. On paper, Morocco therefore possesses an institutional framework capable of supporting a genuine territorial policy.

Yet advanced regionalization cannot be reduced to a legal transfer of powers. A region cannot be genuinely autonomous if it does not possess the financial, human, technical, and informational resources necessary to exercise its responsibilities.

This is precisely one of the principal lessons emerging from OECD studies. In its work on contracts between levels of government, the organization emphasizes that State–Region contractualization can improve the coherence of territorial strategies, clarify responsibilities, and strengthen regional ownership of competencies (OECD, 2023). (OECD — Contracts Between Levels of Government).

Contractualization should therefore become a central instrument of the next government. But it should evolve toward genuine territorial performance contracts. Each region should define, jointly with the State, a limited number of priorities over five to ten years: reducing school dropout, creating skilled employment, improving healthcare access, developing connectivity, promoting ecological transition, valorizing heritage, and improving mobility. These contracts should be accompanied by public indicators and annual evaluation.

The OECD specifically recommends shared diagnostics, clear identification of priorities, structured negotiation, and monitoring and evaluation of State–Region contracts (OECD, 2023). (OECD — National Urban Policy Review of Morocco). Morocco could thus move from an essentially institutional form of regionalization toward results-based regionalization.

Financing: Correcting the Spontaneous Geography of Investment

The financial question is central because market mechanisms do not spontaneously produce a balanced distribution of investment. Businesses naturally seek existing infrastructure, large markets, available skills, logistical networks, and agglomeration economies.

The OECD notes that the territorial distribution of foreign direct investment in Morocco reflects the strong economic and social disparities existing among regions, and that disparities in FDI concentration may constitute an obstacle to balanced regional growth (OECD, 2024b). (OECD Investment Policy Reviews: Morocco 2024). It would therefore be unrealistic to expect the market alone to correct territorial imbalances.

Public investment must act as catalytic investment. It must create the conditions that subsequently enable private investment to develop. This means investing in infrastructure, but also in skills, training, public services, digital connectivity, applied research, entrepreneurial ecosystems, and local value chains.

An ambitious territorial policy should also prioritize small and medium-sized cities as growth relays. The OECD specifically recommends strengthening the role of small and medium-sized cities as growth poles and improving relationships between cities and rural areas (OECD, 2025). (OECD — National Urban Policy Review of Morocco).

Territorial development therefore does not consist of opposing metropolitan areas and peripheral regions. It consists of building a network in which metropolitan areas, intermediate cities, small towns, and rural areas are interdependent.

Mountains, Countryside, and Peripheries: Equality Requires Differentiation

Territorial justice does not mean that every territory must receive exactly the same resources. It means that every citizen should have comparable access to essential opportunities.

This distinction is particularly important for mountainous territories. The cost of providing public services is often higher because of terrain, dispersed settlements, climatic conditions, and distance from urban centers.

A strictly egalitarian policy could therefore produce new inequalities. If a rural mountain school receives exactly the same resources as an easily accessible urban school, it does not in reality benefit from the same level of support.

Morocco should consequently introduce a form of differentiated territorial equalization, based on distance, altitude, population density, climatic conditions, infrastructure access, and levels of vulnerability.

This approach corresponds to a modern conception of spatial justice: territories facing structural constraints should receive additional resources so that their citizens can achieve a comparable level of opportunity.

Mobility is equally important. Residents of rural and mountainous territories must be able to access schools, hospitals, labor markets, and administrative services without their place of residence becoming a permanent penalty.

The OECD also emphasizes that Morocco’s territorial disparities concern not only income but also access to services and opportunities (OECD, 2024a, 2025). (OECD Economic Surveys: Morocco 2024 — Key Policy Insights).

Digitalization: The New Frontier of Territorial Equality

In the twenty-first century, digital connectivity is becoming infrastructure as strategic as roads or electricity. Internet access now conditions access to education, information, administrative procedures, commerce, vocational training, and certain forms of employment. The digital divide therefore risks becoming a new form of territorial divide.

Morocco must avoid a situation in which digital transformation primarily benefits major metropolitan areas. Rural, mountainous, and peripheral territories should be considered priority areas for digital deployment.

Digitalization can, moreover, become a powerful instrument for correcting territorial imbalances. Telemedicine can reduce certain healthcare distances; digital education can expand access to educational resources; online administrative services can reduce the costs associated with geographical isolation; and commercial platforms can enable local producers to access national and international markets. But technology alone is insufficient. It must be accompanied by digital skills, collective facilities, and a genuine policy of inclusion.

Amazigh Identity: An Essential Dimension of Territorial Justice

This is where the Amazigh question acquires particular political depth. It should not be confined to a sterile opposition between Arabness and Amazighness. The 2011 Constitution explicitly recognizes Morocco’s plural identity and establishes, in Article 5, Tamazight as an official language of the State and a common heritage of all Moroccans (Kingdom of Morocco, 2011). This constitutional provision has implications extending beyond language policy. It implies an inclusive conception of the state and citizenship.

Amazigh culture is not a residual element of Morocco’s social fabric, but a central component of the Kingdom’s civilization and culture. This interpretation is consistent with your broader analysis of the historical formation of Morocco as a space in which Amazigh, Arab, Islamic, African, Andalusian, Jewish, and Mediterranean legacies have become intertwined (Chtatou, 2026a, 2026b). (Amazigh Culture in Morocco: Challenges and Future Prospects — Analysis). This plurality should be regarded as a national strength, rather than as a threat to unity.

The challenge now is to move from symbolic recognition to institutional effectiveness. The Amazigh language must progressively acquire a real place in schools, administration, healthcare, media, culture, and digital services.

This question also possesses a territorial dimension. Many Amazigh-speaking areas are historically located in mountains, rural zones, and certain peripheral regions. Linguistic marginalization can therefore overlap with geographical marginalization. Amazigh policy should consequently be integrated into territorial convergence policy.

Your conception of the “Amazigh cultural trinity”—language, land, and solidarity is particularly useful in this respect (Chtatou, 2026a). (Amazigh Culture in Morocco: Challenges and Future Prospects — Analysis). Language ensures cultural transmission; land expresses territorial rootedness; and solidarity refers to community-based forms of mutual assistance and cooperation.

This latter dimension could be particularly fruitful for territorial development. Traditions of community solidarity can interact with the social and solidarity economy, cooperatives, family farming, ecotourism, and the valorization of local products. Amazigh identity thus becomes not merely a heritage to preserve, but also a resource for development.

Culture, Heritage, and Development: Giving Territories a Soul

Territorial development cannot, however, be reduced to the construction of roads, dams, or industrial zones. Territories are also spaces of memory, culture, heritage, and belonging.

Moroccan civilization has been built through the accumulation and interaction of multiple legacies. It is important to emphasize the historical continuity and interaction among the Amazigh, Arab, African, Andalusian, and European dimensions of Moroccan formation. Your analysis of Amazigh and Jewish heritage also highlights the profoundly plural character of Moroccan civilization (Chtatou, 2026b, 2026c). (Deciphering the History of Morocco: Continuity, Rupture, and the Making of a North African Civilization — Analysis). This plurality constitutes considerable cultural and economic capital.

Territories can valorize their tangible and intangible heritage: vernacular architecture, crafts, music, oral literature, gastronomy, traditional water-management systems, cultural landscapes, agricultural knowledge, and community-based forms of solidarity.

An intelligent territorial development policy should therefore transform culture into a factor of value creation without reducing it to a tourism product. The objective should be to construct a territorial economy in which local populations become the principal beneficiaries of heritage valorization.

Education and Youth: Breaking the Geography of Social Reproduction

Territorial convergence will never be sustainable without a differentiated education policy. Education is the principal instrument for breaking the intergenerational reproduction of inequality.

The OECD emphasizes that inequalities of opportunity begin early in life and that the distinction between urban and rural areas continues to influence access to services and individual trajectories (OECD, 2024a). (OECD Economic Surveys: Morocco 2024 — Key Policy Insights).

Morocco should therefore devote greater resources to territories where educational needs are greatest: school transportation, boarding facilities, meals, digital infrastructure, libraries, teacher training, and the fight against school dropout.

It is also necessary to develop a genuine policy of territorialized higher education. Universities, institutes, and vocational training establishments should not merely respond to national demand; they should be designed as engines of regional economies.

A university located in a mountainous region could, for example, develop specialized programs in mountain agriculture, water management, biodiversity, ecotourism, or cultural heritage. A university located in an industrial region could place greater emphasis on engineering, logistics, and industrial technologies. In this way, the territory would no longer merely consume knowledge produced elsewhere; it would become a producer of knowledge adapted to its own needs.

The Next Government: A Government of Convergence

This is precisely where the September 23, 2026 elections acquire particular importance. Political parties should be encouraged to move beyond general programs and present a genuine territorial doctrine.

The next government should be able to answer precise questions: How many doctors will be assigned to underserved territories? How many schools will be modernized? What strategy will be adopted for small cities? What policy will be pursued for mountain regions? What financing will be provided to rural municipalities? What timetable will govern the effective extension of Tamazight in public services? What equalization mechanisms will be strengthened? The electoral campaign should thus become a debate on territorialized and measurable objectives.

The government could establish a National Territorial Convergence Index, combining several variables: income, employment, education, healthcare, infrastructure access, digital connectivity, mobility, environment, and citizen participation.

Each region could receive an annual public assessment of its progress.

This system would also make it possible to transform administrative culture: instead of measuring only expenditure, government should measure the results produced.

A territory should not be considered successful because it has spent its budget, but because its citizens have actually obtained better services, more employment, better schools, and improved access to healthcare.

Toward a Strategic State and Capable Territories

The transition from a Morocco of centers to a Morocco of territories obviously does not mean the disappearance of the center. A strong national state remains indispensable to guarantee solidarity, equality before the law, security, major strategic investments, and national cohesion. But a strong state does not necessarily have to be a state that decides everything from the capital.

The challenge is to build a strategic state, capable of setting national standards, redistributing resources, ensuring overall coherence, and evaluating results, while allowing territories to adapt policies to local realities.

This conception corresponds to the logic of multilevel governance promoted by the OECD. Advanced regionalization requires better coordination among the State, regions, provinces, prefectures, and municipalities, as well as clearer responsibilities and stronger administrative capacities (OECD, 2023, 2025). (OECD — Contracts Between Levels of Government).

Administrative deconcentration should therefore complement decentralization. An effective deconcentrated administration brings the state closer to citizens; effective decentralization enables elected territorial authorities to design responses adapted to local realities. The ultimate objective is integrated territorial governance, in which each level knows what it must do, with what resources, and according to which indicators.

Conclusion: No Territory Should Be Condemned to the Periphery

Morocco in 2026 possesses considerable achievements. It has institutional stability, modern infrastructure, an expanded diplomatic network, a diversified economy, and experience with territorial reform that provide it with the means to enter a new stage of development. But this new stage can no longer be exclusively quantitative. It must be territorial, human, inclusive, and qualitative.

HCP data show a significant improvement in multidimensional poverty while also revealing the persistence of fine-grained territorial disparities (HCP, 2025a, 2025b). (High Commission for Planning — Multidimensional Poverty Mapping). OECD studies highlight persistent problems of coordination, capacity, and financing in territorial governance and propose, among other measures, strengthening State–Region contracts, local capacities, and mechanisms of multilevel cooperation (OECD, 2023, 2025). OECD — Contracts Between Levels of Government. The NDM, for its part, provides a strategic vision based on economic transformation, human-capital development, social inclusion, and the valorization of territories (CSMD, 2021).

Morocco therefore does not lack diagnoses. What it primarily lacks is a sufficiently coherent and determined policy capable of transforming these diagnoses into genuine convergence. This is why the September 23, 2026 legislative elections should provide an opportunity for a national debate on the geography of citizenship. The essential question should be whether Morocco wants to continue with a model in which major centers concentrate opportunities or build a model in which every territory becomes capable of contributing fully to national prosperity.

The choice should not be between center and periphery. It should be between concentration and complementarity, dependence and territorial capacity, formal equality and substantive equality.

The Amazigh question naturally belongs within this transformation. The constitutional recognition of Tamazight is not merely a cultural concession; it constitutes an affirmation of the plural foundations of Moroccan identity (Kingdom of Morocco, 2011). The Amazigh heritage should be understood as one of the historical and cultural foundations of Moroccan civilization, interacting with Arab, Islamic, African, Andalusian, and Jewish legacies (Chtatou, 2026a, 2026b, 2026c). (Amazigh Culture in Morocco: Challenges and Future Prospects — Analysis).

Recognizing this plurality does not weaken national unity. It can, on the contrary, strengthen it, because a nation is stronger when its citizens recognize their history within the national history and their culture within the common culture.

A Morocco of territories would not be a fragmented Morocco. It would be a more integrated Morocco, because more citizens would feel that the state is present, accessible, and equitable.

Nor would it mean transforming every region into an autonomous economy. Rather, it would mean constructing a system of interdependencies in which Casablanca, Rabat, Tangier, Marrakech, Fez, and the other major metropolitan areas fully perform their role as engines of growth, while small and medium-sized cities, rural areas, mountains, oases, and peripheral regions possess the means to develop their own resources.

The true ambition should be to move from a policy of territorial planning to a policy of territorial empowerment.

This transformation requires a profound change in governmental philosophy. The next government should not be judged solely by the growth rate, the volume of investment, or the number of projects inaugurated. It should be judged by a much more fundamental question: Are the opportunity gaps between Moroccan citizens actually narrowing?

If the answer is yes, then Morocco will have begun its transition from a Morocco of centers to a Morocco of territories.

If the answer is no, major projects, however impressive, will not be sufficient to produce the territorial justice that citizens expect.

The true horizon for Morocco should therefore be that of a strong national state, capable regions, dynamic cities, connected rural areas, integrated mountains, and citizens equal in their rights and opportunities.

Ultimately, territorial justice does not mean that all territories must become identical. It means that the territory in which one is born should no longer excessively determine the life one is able to lead. That is the real issue at stake in the 2026 elections. And it is, more profoundly, where the construction of tomorrow’s Morocco will be decided.

 

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