Women's Rural Cooperatives in Morocco: Challenges and Collapses

The history of social and solidarity economy in Morocco has been action-packed since the early 2000s. In response to reducing poverty, vulnerability, insecurity and social exclusion, his Majesty the King Mohamed VI has launched the National Human Development Initiative (INDH) in 2005. This royal initiative embraces a series of agendas that promote human sustainable development. One of these standards that this research paper emphasizes is gender equality and inclusion. Recently, female cooperatives have experienced a remarkable advancement in Morocco; actually, since 2005, the (INDH) seeks to promote programs dedicated to women in rural areas in order to integrate them into the economic development of the country. The creation of cooperatives has been one of the solutions proposed at a national level; today, women are present at the Moroccan cooperative level in different sectors. However, despite the existence of a motivating legal regulation for the development of the cooperative work and the efforts of several parties to encourage and support this movement, Morocco is still experiencing serious difficulties in dealing with women’s social inclusion, particularly in rural areas. In this respect, the present paper addresses the different challenges rural women’s cooperatives endure extending from lack of education, self-esteem, governance and management, financing and accompaniment, to marketing and relationships with their environment. Given the qualitative nature of the study, a series of semi-instructed interviews’ meetings were held with women from the region of Chichaoua, namely Assif El Mal area. Unfortunately, rural women were locally limited to small projects that kept them back in their vulnerable situations. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY GENDER STUDIES المجلة الدولية للدراسات الجندرية متعددة التخصصات: ميدوسا و الفكر المعاصر, Vol. 2 No. 1 (2021): GENDER DIALOGUES ON CONTEMPORARY ISSUES