Morocco’s social and solidarity economy sector contributed to the creation of 24,558 jobs in 2025, said Lahcen Saâdi, Secretary of State for Handicrafts and the Social and Solidarity Economy, on Wednesday in Rabat.
Speaking at the closing ceremony of the International Year of Cooperatives, organized by his department in partnership with the Office for the Development of Cooperation (ODCO) under the slogan “Now it’s up to cooperatives,” Saâdi said that under the enlightened leadership of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, Morocco continues to devote its leadership in the social and solidarity economy sector to a model that combines economic efficiency and social solidarity.
He announced that a new framework law is being drafted with a view to making a legislative leap forward to strengthen the structure of the sector, highlighting several new initiatives aimed at modernizing the sector, including the launch of the “Project Bank,” which offers concrete investment opportunities for young people and women.
It also involves the creation of an online training portal, available in Amazigh and Arabic (classical and dialectal), in order to broaden its scope, particularly in remote areas, in addition to the launch of an e-commerce platform for cooperative products with the aim of strengthening their competitiveness, he said.
Regarding financial support, the government official explained that the MOAZARA program will fund more than 500 projects between 2025 and 2026, a number equivalent to the total number of projects funded since 2021, while “Tahfiz Niswa,” a program set up in partnership with the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation, aims in its first phase to create 5,000 jobs for women entrepreneurs in four regions of the Kingdom.
For her part, ODCO Director General Aicha Errifaai noted that 65,315 cooperatives are active in Morocco with some 789,000 members, including 272,000 women and 18,000 young people.
This sector directly contributes to the creation of 120,000 jobs, giving rise to 333 large cooperatives and contributing to economic transformation through a turnover of around MAD 14 billion, she said, adding that this dynamic falls in line with global trends.
In turn, Rose Karimi Kiwanuka, Regional Director of the International Cooperative Alliance-Africa, emphasized, in a statement read on her behalf by Santosh Kumar, Legal Director at the International Cooperative Alliance, that the celebration marking the end of the International Year of Cooperatives 2025 is not a mere symbolic event, but rather represents the UN’s recognition of the central role of the solidarity economy in achieving sustainable development.
The ceremony, attended by presidents of professional chambers and representatives of the cooperative sector, featured the signing of a partnership agreement between Entraide Nationale and ODCO, aimed at promoting the socio-economic integration of women, young people, and people with disabilities.
2025 has been declared the “International Year of Cooperatives by the United Nations. This initiative was formalized by a General Assembly resolution calling on Member States and UN agencies to promote the cooperative model and highlight its impact on the achievement of sustainable development goals.
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