Article from Aujourd’hui le Maroc, February 15, 2022, by Ouchagour Leila
The social and solidarity economy is a source of jobs and wealth. For its growth, a more adequate legal and regulatory framework is needed.
This is in any case the ambition expressed by the Department of Crafts and Social and Solidarity Economy which is working with the French Development Agency (AFD) on a study in this direction. “This regulatory and legislative component is one of the pillars of the strategy and action plan for the promotion of the social and solidarity economy in Morocco in order to establish a favorable environment for the promotion of entrepreneurship in the social and solidarity economy (SSE) and to enhance the contribution of the SSE in the overall economy of the country,” says the said department. The objective is to recognize the value and requirements of this sector. It is also a question of promoting its structuring, particularly at the institutional level, allowing the convergence of public policies dedicated to the promotion of SSE and the participation of territorial development at the level of all regions of Morocco.
This study aims to develop a framework law to organize and structure the sector, set up an effective governance system, promote the organizations that make up the sector, define the eligibility criteria of the actors likely to integrate the SSE or strengthen social innovation within the territories. It must be said that in recent years, the social and solidarity economy has experienced remarkable development. This dynamic has resulted in a significant change in the activities and fabric of the components of this economy, in particular cooperatives, associations and mutuals, benefiting from better supervision, through sectoral programmes and strategies, in particular the National Initiative for Human Development, and a more favourable environment. From a legal point of view, the public authorities have revised the legal texts of the components of the SSE whenever it was necessary to update its texts and have provided the entities concerned with legal mechanisms responding to the new economic and social challenges, and cooperatives are governed by a new law (No. 12-12 which entered fully into force in December 2019).
In order to reinforce this trend, taking into account the orientations of the new development model and those of the new national strategy of the SSE, improve the visibility of the SSE sector, its development and, consequently, its profitability and its weight in the country’s GDP and thus increase the opportunities for jobs and wealth creation, “it is necessary to set up a governance system that generates coherence, sustainability and efficiency for the activities of the SSE, and to boost the promotion of its organisations, as important levers for national, regional and local development. The drafting of a framework law dedicated to the social and solidarity economy (SSE) in Morocco is an important step that marks the common desire to boost and develop this economy even more, “says the same source.
Read the rest of the article (in French) here.
