The Rural Development Program mountainous areas (PDRZM) has had positive impacts in the process of combating poverty and management of climate risks in the areas of its deployment. According to an analysis by the Moroccan Association of Economic Sciences (AMSE), signed by Mariem Liouaeddine and Hajar El-Fatouaki, this roadmap has generated significant progress in improving basic infrastructure (water, roads, electricity) in several remote regions. However, AMSE economists highlight significant gaps in terms of governance, inter-institutional coordination and targeting of beneficiaries. The authors thus recommend a “more inclusive” and “participatory” approach, which involves more local populations in the design and implementation of projects, to maximize economic and social impacts.
Evaluation of the impact of the Program on mitigating the effects of climatic hazards and reducing the poverty rate in the areas ofAzilal et Sefrou in Morocco shows that despite the short period of implementation of this program, it has had a positive impact on agricultural productivity, on the fight against climatic hazards and on the improvement of household income.
In fact, the program’s actions contributed more than 20% to the increase in productivity of tree crops among beneficiary agricultural producers compared to 19% among non-beneficiary producers. Regarding the mitigation of climatic hazards, the recommended sustainable environmental techniques and practices were adopted by nearly 55% of beneficiaries sensitized by the PDRZM compared to 4.6% of households in the control group. The authors of the analysis explain that the farmers benefiting from the Program followed training sessions on environmental risks focused on the adoption of technologies and practices that do not have negative effects on environmental goods and services and which are accessible to them.
Concerning the impact of the program on reducing the monetary povertythe results show that the average income per household increased by 23.7% in the treatment group compared to 4.8% in the control group, which means a reduction in the poverty rate of 19.7%.
In short, AMSE analysts conclude, the results obtained as part of the work carried out by AMSE reveal the positive impact of these proximity programs and suggest the need to encourage them in order to significantly reduce the poverty and climate risks in mountainous areas. “However, the methodology adopted in this work can be further developed by including time series of market prices for major commodities in the program areas and by incorporating individual characteristics of each household. The impact of the program should also be the subject of a quasi-experimental econometric analysis for more robust results. These avenues will make it possible to improve the results in terms of statistics and economic analysis,” suggest the authors of the analysis.
Remember that the assessment of the impacts of the PDRZM was carried out by AMSE, to estimate the evolution compared to the reference situation. To this end, two groups were selected to constitute the sample for the impact analysis: the group of beneficiaries (treatment group) and the group of non-beneficiaries (control group) of the program.
Morocco
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