The Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE) produced a drought assessment evaluation of Morocco’s efforts over the previous year to address the lack of water, through a focus on agriculture with a gender approach, and found that there is still room for improvement.
The report, which was released on December 30, noted that significant investment efforts in surface water storage and mobilization of 73 facilities, as well as significant availability of renewable groundwater, are expected to secure water resources that are sufficient to meet the needs of Moroccans, promote harmonious growth of the various sectors of the economy, and significantly improve its food security.
One of the assessment’s key findings is that male community members in rural areas who used to consider agriculture as their main income source decided to migrate to urban communities seeking temporary or permanent jobs.
This drought season affected women the most, which are primarily responsible for fetching water, and with the drought, water access became more challenging.
Additionally, as the male head of the home migrates to urban areas, female family members step forward to take on new obligations on top of their already heavy daily workloads, placing them in a very stressful situation.
“There is still a difference between women and men, for example traveling, a man can travel but women are not, this has a relation to responsibilities, a woman is responsible for livestock, taking care of the house and children, then she can do something if she has a free time,” said a female community survey respondent from Marrakech.
Drought can have a significant impact on the macro economy, but this study proved that agricultural production and yields were the most affected sector, negatively impacting people’s livelihoods like small farmers and rural workers with particular difficulties women and girls were facing due to water and income shortage.
Some of the recommendations that CARE had for Morocco is to engage women in the program design phases especially when it comes to preparedness and resilience building to fight off drought.
Delivering awareness-raising sessions to the local communities while covering water value and water management methods and techniques, targeting farmers with information related to smart-climate agriculture and food production, and accessing early warning systems and information from official sources would be of great help to Morocco’s already operational efforts and tactics to overcome the effects of drought and it’s social impact.
CARE followed a gender evaluation to get a better hold on how the pressing issues have been impacting both males and females to come up with solutions for both.
“Apart from the above internal migration, it was reported that the young generation is living with the aim of migrating to Europe to seek a better future and less challenging living conditions related to basic aspects such as drinking water,” explained CARE’s report.
It is suggested that Morocco distributes certified seeds and adequate amounts of fertilizers, in addition to water collection, storage, and transportation of high-quality materials, as one of the solutions to limit the effects of increased prices, which are occurring concurrently with high harvest losses as a result of the drought, in order to limit the effects of the drought in 2023.
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