Human Development in the Arab Spring: Morocco's Efforts to Shape Its Global Future

This essay provides programmatic and administrative recommendations for the effective building of civil, governmental, and private capabilities to help implement human development driven by local communities in Morocco in light of the Arab Spring. The essay relates a human development model rooted in decentralization to situations with powerful regional implications: in Iraq, Palestine, and the Western (Moroccan) Sahara. The engine for sustainable human development depends on local communities and neighborhoods identifying, planning, and implementing the socioeconomic and environmental projects they most need. Morocco has created a number of essential national frameworks for promoting such development, but their implementation is inadequate due to a lack of financing, of effective training, and of the application of methods that promote communal dialogue and democratic planning. Human development is examined in the context of free trade, with particular attention paid to rural areas, where most poverty is concentrated.