The rural commune of Ijoukak

In his new concept of authority, the king has put much emphasis on the role that leaders of regions, provinces and communes should play in protecting public services, local businesses, individual and collective freedoms, local security and stability, local level management and the maintenance of social peace. The new concept of authority is supposed to bypass administrative offices and to promote direct contact and local problem-solving using appropriate solutions (El Yaacoubi and Harsi 2006:191-192).

169 The new concept of authority amounts to a new culture of public service based on respect for decentralized institutions and local liberties. It implies increased administrative and financial autonomy for local authorities (Bergh 2009:8).However, in order to avoid corruption, the province approves the annual budget allocated to the commune and the caid overviews the meetings to ensure that realistic proposals are made (Venema and Mguild 2002). This reshuffling of power relations at the commune level as stipulated by the king’s wishes has become crucial not only in identifying community’s vital priorities but also in taking action. The commune is in a better position to identify these priorities since it is closer to the people. This is only feasible providing that there is a good understanding of the issues at stake, but especially the will to act upon them. The task of finding a leader, who can act, transparently, in the common good is indeed difficult. This is a society managed by a handful of local elected people motivated by self-interest and influenced largely by traditional local elite who have the financial means to promote clientelism.

Unlike his predecessor, the current president of Ijoukak commune was trained as a plumber and was primarily interested in finding means to make money. The commune is the last link in the political hierarchy and obeys orders that come from above. He was therefore quite willing to follow the top down directives and to act upon them. However, he not only lacked the technical skills but also the drive and motivation to address these issues. The commune allocated the INDH received budget of 70 000 dirham towards the construction of the distillation unit. However, commune’s officials soon claimed an interest and imposed a tax on the Cooperative. The lump sum of 2000 dirham had to be paid well before construction of the building even started. The introduction of a new incentive in 2008 required harvesters to pay insurance in order to get access to the mountains for harvesting. The President of the cooperative had the task of collecting the money from the villagers. This was not popular. According to one informant: ’The Cooperative is supposed to help us, and not to financially drain us. We simply do not have this kind of money to pay for insurance, even though when we start working, everyone is quite willing to make installed payments with whatever he/she can afford’. To add to the turmoil, the President of the Cooperative had taken to signing-off papers on behalf of the President of the commune, making the most of his status. The president obviously did not understand what he was signing as these papers were in French. His signature served to conceal funding transactions allocated to various small projects that did not occur. In 2008, the contracting companies signed the papers to

170 undertake the installation of electricity from Ijoukak to El Maghzen. However, the work was never done and the money simply vanished.Although there is accountability at the Province level, lack of transparency and local accountability at the commune level and the corruption it can disguise are major problems. In the 2009 communal election, the president was not re-elected and eventually found employment as a lorry driver on a building site in Marrakech.

8.5 The local authorities

The local authorities represented by the caid and khalifa are in close contact with the rural commune of Ijoukak. For the distillation project, they claimed to be acting as supporting agents, facilitators and mediators. Both the caid and the khalifa agreed that the project was a good initiative for the region. The former’s view was that one should not expect more than the population’s educational capacity and the latter .maintained that the people had to conform to the local authorities’ view. As the official representatives of the Ministry of Interior, the khalifa and the caid are both significant authority figures, embodying the king’s emphasis on local security and stability. For example, they can act as mediators in village conflicts and in the interests of local and national security, and given that poverty is a recruitment ground for terrorism, they are informed of who enters or leaves the valley. The local moqqadem (reporter) who also has the function of postman regularly reports the movement of people or other developments in the valley. By assigning to the commune the role of the first level connection with the local population, the authorities are supposedly able to identify problems and define potential projects. Consequently, the local population has to bypass the commune and the local authorities, should they want to initiate a project of their own or hold a meeting. The development of any independent bottom-up initiative is therefore jeopardised from the start, as its success is dependent on the permission, good will, honesty and understanding not only of the President of the Commune but especially the local authorities. This was, for example, the case with respect to potential initiatives from women in the context of the distillation project.

171 8.6 The role of the CDRT (Centre de Development de la Region du Tensift) in initiating the distillation project

Though some figures within the Department of Water and Forestry claimed to be solely responsible for the development of the distillation project, the CDRT had in fact been instrumental in its realization. This NGO, based in Marrakech, has 150 staff (researchers, engineers, doctors, entrepreneurs and administrators) and two major objectives. The first is the organisation, animation and framework provision in relation to all development work in the Al Haouz region. The second is the undertaking of demonstration pilot projects. For the distillation project, it worked in partnership with the World Bank, GEF, UNDP, GTZ, DPA (Direction Départémentale de l’Agriculture), INDH, and the Department of Water and Forestry. Typically, and in accordance with its internal policies, CDRT engaged the local population in development incentives through participatory approaches. The objective was the creation of a structure in which local people could be actively involved and in control at every stage from harvesting the plants to export of the products. It sought to establish a structure that above all would allow local people to have a major part in the decision making process, and would combat existing inequalities in the thyme trade of the valley.

The distillation project began in a small way, as the: ‘Projet de valorisation des plantes aromatiques et médicinales dans la vallée d’Agoundis (Commune d’Ijoukak, Province d’Al Haouz). The original project was designed to support a small group of village associations around the Toubkal National Park, in collaboration with GTZ and the park administration. When CDRT started working in the valley in 2003-2004, no one showed particular interest, either in the project or in the aromatic and medicinal plants of the valley. CDRT wanted to engage with the local population and to raise awareness and ensure involvement. One way to achieve this was to arrange for villagers to visit other mature conservation projects. A group of villagers visited several sites, including the National Centre of Hydrobiology and Fish Farming in Azrou, a trout farming project in the village of Taourirt in the adjacent Unaine valley. Aromatic plants being the main interest, the group also visited a botanical garden and a herbal products production unit in the Ourika valley, and an argan oil (Argania spinosa) extraction cooperative in Essouira, The CDRT also provided a small distillation demonstration for the inhabitants of El Maghzen and other villages. This experience encouraged the village association to suggest renovating an old storage building to install a distillation unit, the alembic. In order to find funding, it was necessary to attract more local support.

172 To this end, the CDRT requested aid from the Department of Agriculture, and from the Department of Water and Forestry for technical and administrative services, and gained support from the ‘Direction Départementale de l’Agriculture’ (DPA) through an IFAD programme: ‘Développement rural des zones de montagne d'Al Haouz’. However, the IFAD role in the project had not been defined at that particular point in time. GTZ, however, through its involvement in the Toubkal National Park, was included in the project. The alembic was ordered by the CDRT, designed by a technician and manufactured by a company in El Jadida for 10 000 dirham. It required authorisation from the Moroccan Customs and Excise Office before manufacture. A project pilot committee, including the commune of Ijoukak and its previous president, was set up in the valley in 2004.

The Department of Water and Forestry’s role was to provide trees, technical assistance in planting, maintenance and training for sustainable extraction, as well as scientific follow-up on the growth of the species planted. The commune had agreed to give up rights of usage to the local population. The agreement was that the local population could extract the resources from an area to be determined by the Department of Water and Forestry without having to pay the commune. The local associations therefore had all rights of usage providing that they respected the delimited areas. The valley committee would arrange assistance and management. On the other hand, the village associations were expected to plant, care and manage the trees and shrubs, and to respect management directives agreed by the valley committee. This included respecting designated areas, refraining from construction or use, other than in the authorized plantations, and using the resources only for personal and non-commercial purposes. Last but not least, the village association would need Department of Water and Forestry authorisation prior to any extraction. Clearly, CDRT had tried to accommodate all parties and anticipate various implications. It endeavoured to establish an internal regulatory body for the management of local resources where penalties would have to be paid to the village association when rules were infringed, a practice resembling the traditional jama’a.²⁰

20 In the traditional jama’a, one is penalised if caught using resources in an indiscriminate manner.

173 The project gained increasing public attention, particularly with the visit of the Governor and the High Commissioner of the Ministry of Interior for an opening ceremony in 2007. The Department of Water and Forestry, who had been originally involved only to provide technical services, became increasingly interested when they realised that resources other than trees, wood and (ligneous shrubs) would be extracted.

The Province, through the new INDH initiative (2005) and available budgets, suggested the construction of a bigger building. The concept of a Cooperative emerged at a later stage when CDRT realised that some local people did not have a voice, particularly if they did not belong to a village lineage. CDRT, whose mission was to involve everyone in thyme harvesting, conducted basic workshops locally to try to work out how even the most marginalised people could be represented. A cooperative was thought to provide the best solution. The overall vision was to integrate all village actors, to create an authentic local development advantage by adding value and improving the socio-economic conditions, a measure that would impact on existing local labour exploitation and prevent the loss of profits to outsiders. The NGO took great care in reviewing articles from other cooperative models normally run privately or by professionals. The Agoundis valley cooperative had to be anchored firmly in the village, and if successful, would serve as a model for others. The cooperative articles of association were carefully elaborated so as to provide rights to extract not only medicinal plant resources of the valley but all other resources vested in agriculture, forestry, and fish farming. The articles also gave the cooperative the right to negotiate directly with the Department of Water and Forestry to obtain access to resources. They further empowered the community to request assistance should this be required. Most importantly, they provided the capacity to negotiate and sell thyme directly, a new development that would unbalance existing arrangements. Once the project was running, CDRT would withdraw but continue to provide technical support if requested.

The Cooperative, named CADEFA (Coopérative Agoundis de Développement de l’Environnement Forestier et Agricole), was created in 2006. Twelve office members and six scrutinisers were chosen to represent and manage cooperative affairs for the eight villages. However, before the cooperative could operate, it required reports from both the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Water and Forestry confirming that all arrangements were satisfactory. The ‘Bureau de l’environnement social’ in Marrakech is responsible for endorsing such reports which would then be transmitted to the ‘Office du développement et de la coopération (ODECO) in Rabat in

174 order to obtain authorization to operate. While the Department of Agriculture provided a good report, the Department of Water and Forestry blocked the process saying that in order to deliver a report they needed to check the building work.