30th April - 1st May2007
Marrakech, Morocco

THE MARRAKECH DECLARATION

Health for All Now!
People's Health Movement

A study titled "Arab Reform and Foreign Aid: Lessons from Morocco" was conducted by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, to evaluate the experience of Morocco in the field of economic and cultural reform. The authors of the study -- Haim Malka and John Alterman -- conducted a series of interviews with hundreds of Moroccans from various sectors, including members of the government, university teaching staff, journalists, and members of non-governmental and civil society organizations.

Microfinance is thriving in Morocco. Poor people who cannot qualify for traditional loans can now start businesses with micro-credit loans. Soudoji opened his babouche (slipper) shop using micro-credit. With the help of low-interest micro-credit loans, many poor Moroccans, including women and people from rural areas, have been able to escape poverty and start their own businesses.

It is the message of trust you are sending by the image of a woman selling lemons on a street corner. That is the secret of micro finance, stressed Pancho Otero, director of the Bolivia-based Micro Enterprise Policy.  “Boosting both cash and self-esteem is what micro-finance is about, for poverty is not only an economic issue, but the way you see yourself and how society sees you,” added Otero in a presentation on the financial assistance of micro finance services. He was speaking in a three-day seminar on `Small and Micro Business Development Services' held at the Queen Zein Al Sharaf Institute for Development. 

After two decades of indefensible neglect, agriculture is back on the agenda. The World Bank’s publication of the ‘World Development Report 2008: Agriculture For Development’ (hereafter WDR), the first WDR on agriculture since 1982, reflects this renewed interest in the sector’s potential to reduce rural poverty and inequality. The context is now vastly changed: as the Report outlines, agriculture faces new challenges, from natural resource degradation, and climate change to trade and market liberalization, the rise of powerful new private actors and the development of new technologies. So what is the agenda now for agriculture?

One billion people worldwide lack access to clean drinking water, and the debate rages on how to resolve the problem. Privatization of the water supply is controversial and has met with mixed results. But the private sector is contributing to the solution through the development of technologies that can provide safe, clean water at a relatively low cost. Some unique models are bringing water to the world’s poor by combining these technologies with market enterprise and social welfare.