Slum Eradication Policies in Marrakech, Morocco

Slum Eradication Policies in Marrakech, Morocco Assessing the semi-private-state nexus of the Villes Sans Bidonvilles Program

Wajiha Ibrahim Masters in Urban and Regional Planning, 2016 University of Michigan

Slum Eradication Policies in Marrakech, Morocco Assessing the semi-private-state nexus of the Villes Sans Bidonvilles Program

by Wajiha Ibrahim

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Urban Planning at The University of Michigan, 2016

Acknowledgements All Thanks and Praise to the All-Mighty.

Needless to say, I did not accomplish this work on my own. Numerous individuals helped and supported me in countless, immeasurably crucial ways.

Foremost amongst the people I want to express gratitude towards are my parents who in my weakest of hours, have offered unconditional support and unwavering belief in my work and dedication to this study. My dear friend and roommate, Katrina Chaves, whose boundless optimism, steadfast believe in me, and constant willingness to listen have so often brought me out of my shadows this year.

My research would not have been made possible without the help of my colleagues at the High Atlas Foundation in Marrakech: Dr. Yossef Ben Meir, Dr. Abderrahim Ouarghidi, Fatima-Zahra Laarbi, and Malika Kassi. From their assistance in aiding my research efforts to offering much needed moral support during my field work, I am indebted to the boundless assistance they provided in making this thesis research possible.

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisors, Dr. Ana Paula Walker and Dr. Martin Murray. Ana Paula has been an exceptional mentor, quite literally from the first day I arrived at the Taubman College. Whilst she has never flagged in her support, she has challenged me to improve, to think more critically, to do better.

I hope that in all my endeavors I am able to manifest what she has taught me as an academic and a planner.

Finally, I thank Taubman College at the University of Michigan for permitting me to take the path less travelled and partake in a Master’s Thesis. Last but not least, I thank the faculty that supported me in this process, let alone throughout my two years in the Masters of Urban and Regional Planning program.

Wajiha Ibrahim 2nd May, 2016

Abbreviations ADS AFD ANHI AS CODI ERAC EU EUR FBPMC FDI FMBA

Agency for Social Development French Development Agency National Agency for Substandard Housing Accompagnement social Community Organizations Development Institute Regional Establishment for Management and Construction European Union Euros Fondation Banque Populaire for Micro- Credit Foreign Direct Investment French Moroccan Building Association

FOGARIM FONDEP FSH FTA HC IMF INAU INDH MAD MDG MENA MFI MIF PARHI

Moroccan Loan Guarantee Program Foundation for the Development and Local Micro Credit Partnerships Social Housing Fund Free Trade Agreement Habitat Clandestine (Informal Housing) International Monetary Fund National Institute for Urban Management National Initiative for Human Development Moroccan dirham Millennium Development Goal Middle East and North African Microfinance Institution Moroccan Infrastructure Fund National Program for Rehousing and Management of Housing

PPP QIZ SAP SEZ SME SWF UN UNFP USAID USD VSBP

Public Private Partnership Qualified Industrial Zone Structural Adjustment Program Special Economic Zone Small to Medium-sized Enterprises Sovereign Wealth Fund United Nations Union Nationale des Forces Populaires United States Agency for International Development US dollars Villes Sans Bidonvilles Program

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List of Tables Table 01 Household Income of Slum Residents ................................................. 87 Table 02 Income for Heads of Households .......................................................... 87 Table 03 Income Quartiles and Housing Affordability ..................................... 87 Table 04 Main Source of Loan Borrowers by Income Quartile ...................... 88 Table 05 Monthly Payments for Typical Loans Offered by Banks ................. 88 Table 06 VSBP Total Costs up to May 2015 ........................................................... 89

List of Images and Figures 01 ‘The Caged Citizen’ ...................................................................................... 14 02 ‘The Distance Within - The Distance Between’ ................................... 29 03 Marrakech Context Map ............................................................................ 32 04 Urban Growth of Marrakech Medina 1915-2015 .............................. 33 05 Urban Housing Dynamics of Marrakech .............................................. 37 06 Douar of Marrakech .................................................................................... 38 07 Informal Neighborhood vs. Douar ........................................................ 44 08 Construction Materials of Douars .......................................................... 45 09 Typologies of Peri-Urban Douar of Marrakech .................................. 46 10 ‘Market Close - End of Day’ ....................................................................... 53 11 Marrakech City Plan, 1935 ........................................................................ 58 12 ‘Sunrise in the Medina’ ............................................................................... 75 13 ‘Informal Housing in Tanger’ .................................................................... 89 14 ‘Prayer Time in the Kasbah’ ........................................................................102

Contents Acknowledgments

i

Abbreviations

iii

List of Tables

iv

List of Figures

v

01 Introduction

10

1.1 Morocco as an Emerging Democracy

1.2. Contextualizing the Housing Paradox

02 Literature Review

2.1 The Housing Paradox

2.2 Evolving Approaches to Informality

2.3 Relevant Programs and Initiatives

2.3.1 Thailand’s Baan Makong Upgrading Program

2.3.2 Brazil’s Ribeira Azul Upgrading Program

03 Marrakech in Context

3.1 City Overview

3.2 Population Structure

3.3 Commerce & Employment

3.4 Urban Districts

3.5 Growing of Urban Volatility

04 Les Bidonvilles of Marrakech

4.1 “Tin-Can” Cities

4.2 Origins and Development

4.3 Douar of Marrakech

4.4 Types of Douar

4.5 Existing Physical Conditions

4.6 Bidonville Dwellers

16

30

40

05 Mapping Morocco’s Housing Interventions

5.1 Urban Insecurity

5.2 Colonial Settlement and Anarchy (1917-1947)

5.3 Planning the Colonial City (1947-1952)

5.4 The Role of the FMBA

5.5 Planning after Independence (1956-1960)

5.6 Key Development Phases

06 Methodology

6.1 Overview

6.2 On-site Interviews

6.3 Modes of Analysis 6.3.1 Analysis of Interview Content

6.3.2 Analysis of Official Documents [Primary Data]

6.3.3 Secondary Data Analysis

6.4 Limitations

07 Villes Sans Bidonvilles Program

7.1 Overview

7.2 Main Objectives and Components of Program

7.3 Key Actors

7.4 Semi-Private-State Nexus

7.4.1 Role of Al-Omrane

7.4.2 Funding Mechanisms

7.4.3 New Town Development in Marrakech

08 Discussion

76

90

8.1 Areas of Improvement

8.1.1 Entrenchment of State Power

8.1.2 Social Impact

66

6.2.1 Content and Structure of Interviews

54

8.2 Implications of Neoliberal Reform in Marrakech

09 Concluding Remarks

104

Works Cited

106

Chapter 01

Introduction

1.1 Morocco as an Emerging Democracy The delirious early days of the Arab uprisings seem like a distant memory today. What peaked in 2011 as a series of protests sweeping the Middle East and North Africa simply disproves longstanding assumptions about how democracies can—and should—emerge in the so-called Arab world. While unquestionably, no country can claim to be a perfect democracy, it is only the Arab world that has stood out for being quite simply authoritarian.

Examining different regimes—for example, Qaddafi of Libya, Mubarak of Egypt, Assad of Syria, or King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia—reveals recurring patterns of sociopolitical volatility. The Arab Uprisings therefore, not only offer an opportunity to celebrate the first genuine shifts towards democratization and market-based economies, but also provide an occasion to evaluate how various authoritarian regimes molded their path towards democracy.

A noteworthy component of these transitions includes the shifting role of the informal sector in emerging democracies. While many countries have increased political participation, achieved macroeconomic stabilization and restored growth, millions of people remain excluded from political and economic systems (Kuchta-Helbling, 2000).

A glaring symptom of this exclusion is the growing number of entrepreneurs who are engaged in low-income, low-growth business activities outside the formal economy.

Although in theory, democratic governance and market-based economies should extend benefits to all populations, there are several institutional structures that prevent this from happening. In other words, there are barriers to participation—in the formal political and economic systems—such as restricted access to financial opportunity, limitations on property rights, inadequate legal protection, etc. While some transitioning governments have blatantly sidelined the informal sector, others—such as Morocco, the case in point of this study— have found unique ways to leverage the informal sector as a means of socioeconomic advancement. I take this opportunity to note that while the informal sector can be compartmentalized into several categories, this study evaluates informal housing and respective initiatives at the core of the democratization movement.

Informal housing reserves an all-encompassing capacity within the informal market, lending it a compelling topic of research. As a place of residence for low-income employees, informal dwellings keep the wheels of the city turning in many different ways. The majority of informal dwellers within cities of the Global South earn their living from informal sector activities located either within or outside informal areas, and many informal entrepreneurs operating from communities of informal dwellings have clienteles extending to the rest of the city. Many of these informal housing communities are the first stopping points for immigrants and rural migrants, providing the low-cost and only affordable housing that will enable them to save for their eventual absorption into urban Slum Eradication Policies in Marrakech, Morocco

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society (UN-Habitat, 2003). Slums are also places in which the vibrant mixing of different cultures frequently results in new forms of artistic expression. Out of unhealthy, crowded and often dangerous environments can emerge cultural movements and levels of solidarity unknown in the suburbs of the rich. Thus, in evaluating the policies and programs put in place by emerging democracies to address informal housing, there is opportunity for deeper understanding and discovery of the state of informality in a region.

Morocco is an interesting case with respect to its take on improving the state of informal housing. Moreover, the country’s transition from a long-time stable state to an emerging democracy presents a much needed narrative to understanding the antecedent events prompting nationwide slum eradication policies. The kingdom was considered by many journalists and international observers as a promising test case for democratization theory when the late King Hassan II and later his son Mohamed VI embarked upon a seemingly ambitious political and reform process in the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s. By the end of the 1990s, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch argued that Morocco had dramatically improved its human rights record (Zemni and Bogaert, 2006). On top of that, the World Bank lauded Morocco as being one of the ‘success stories’ of global market reform in the region, an exception to the wider regional trend of authoritarian durability. Yet, the idea of a ‘Moroccan exception’ was shattered for the first time in 2003 with the suicide bombings in Casablanca. After the attacks, some argued, the monarchy reverted to even more authoritarian modes of governance reminiscent of the past decades. Others, however, still thought of Morocco as a valuable case for democratization theory to understand its gradual transition to a Western-style liberal democracy (Storm, 2007). Even today, the pressures for political change that followed the events in Tunisia and Egypt, and the immediate answer of the king on March 9, 2011, ordering the establishment of a constitutional committee charged with the revision of the Moroccan Constitution and reviving the process of political reform, seemed to suggest that Morocco can still be a valuable case to study the gradual transition to democracy. The explosion in Aprill 2011 at the Argana cafe on the very popular Jma’ el-Fnaa square in Marrakech, killing 16 persons, prompted harsher response by the authorities to the demonstrations and protests, many of which were allegedly organized by slum dwellers. It may be argued that this particular case of urban violence was the tipping point that provoked a more comprehensive approach to combating the violence that was perceived to stem from informal housing communities. The topic is discussed in more exhaustive detail in the forthcoming chapters of this study.

12 | INTRODUCTION

1.2. Contextualizing the Housing Paradox In the margin of this debate, we assess the mounting urban implications of these political and economic shifts in the region. Specifically, the rapid rate of informal urban development, identified by the World Bank in 2005 to represent over 23 percent of all dwellings in Morocco. The large majority of Morocco’s responses to the informality phenomenon have been inadequate to say the least. Where the state attempts to balance political instability and economic volatility, housing demand and supply have remained a in a consistent tug-of-war. This thesis study aims to examine the urban policies and interventions that were implemented in post-colonial Morocco. The selected policies focus heavily on housing and informal settlements, leading up the nation’s most polemic yet celebrated slum upgrading initiative: The Villes Sans Bidonvilles Program (VSBP) or Cities without Slums Program. King Mohammed VI launched the program in 2004 as part of a larger government strategy to address both supply and demand sides of the housing sector. The VSBP aimed to make cities free of slums and to improve the living conditions of 1.75 million inhabitants in 85 cities by 2012. Placed in the broader international context of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, aiming to improve living conditions of at least 100 million slum inhabitants by 2015 (NavezBouchanine, 2002) and due unforeseen obstacles in implanting the VSB program, it was extended through the year 2016. As of 2015, over 229,949 households are identified as exhibiting improved living conditions, nearly 146,044 of the country’s targeted slum settlements await attention. Over 74,199 housing units have been completed and/or are under development and 71,845 units remain tangled in the web of administrative bureaucracy (Al-Omrane, 2015).

While the VSBP is a national initiative, I assess the program through the lens of its financial mechanisms, strategies and impacts in the rapidly growing city of Marrakech.

Seeing that much literature exists on Casablanca—albeit, not exhaustive—Marrakech has been excluded from the region’s urban analysis. Hence, intrigue coupled with an inclination to explore the imperial city brought me to host my research in Marrakech.

The city is a particularly fascinating case-study when explored in the context of its contested tourism development campaigns and shifting political economy in the wake of the Arab Spring. As the case for many cities, informal housing in Marrakech is the result of an unresponsive financial system and poor land policies which establish rigid barriers of entry to the city’s low-income populations. Land is particularly expensive in Marrakech due to the city’s economic importance to the country.

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This paper introduces the evolving housing debate in the context of academic literature narrating the rise and fall of social housing programs through the lens of self-help and enablement ideologies. Discussing seminal papers and works that highlight both the strengths and challenges of these approaches permits a greater understanding of the western narrative has informed policies and programs in the Arab world. After orienting the crux of the housing debate, the chapter presents two slum upgrading programs in Thailand and Brazil commemorated for their efficacy and inclusive programming.

Chapters Three and Four frame the proliferation of informality in the context of Marrakech. What qualifies Marrakech as a unique area of study, in terms of its urban development, demographics, and historically central role in the nation’s economic growth. The distinctive significance of bidonvilles in Marrakech is introduced through their origins and development in the wake of political and economic reform in the region.

Chapter Five details the urban insecurity in Morocco by mapping the states of urban intervention ranging from colonial rule through the key phases of development in recent decades. It should be obvious that the huge scale and continuing popularity of illegal or unauthorized housing in many Moroccan cities indicates that something is lacking in the state responses to the phenomenon. After all, informal urban processes have been around for decades and it would seem impossible for high-level government officials to ignore their massive weight. This chapter aims to illuminate some of these shortcomings while providing a platform to introduce the subject at hand, the VSBP. The following chapter—the crux of this study—delves into understanding the mechanisms of the Villes Sans Bidonvilles Program. Specifically, the key components, principle actors, and overarching implementation strategies. Here we understand what sets this program apart from previous urban interventions and how the interplay of semi-private and private enterprises is a key component of the programs goals and objectives.

The final chapters describe the methodology used to conduct this study. Largely dependent on on-site interviews and primary data, I describe the reasoning for the interview structure and strategy of data analysis. Lastly, the chapters discuss the findings of the VSBP in the context of areas that can be improved and facets of the program that are celebrated and potentially replicable in other regions of Global South.

01. “The Caged Citizen” Street art in the streets of Marrakech.

(Ibrahim, W. 2015) 14 | INTRODUCTION

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Chapter 02

Literature Review

2.1 The Housing Paradox It can be argued that the phenomenon of informal housing has become a defining feature of the global urban fabric of the twenty-first century (World Bank, 2010). Also called slums, irregular settlements, spontaneous shelter, squatter settlements, and self-help housing (Abrams, 1964; Davis, 2006; Turner 1967; Portes, 1972; Cornelius, 1975; Koenigsberger, 1976), the proliferation of informal domesticity has brought tremendous social, economic and political challenges.

Although the long and disreputable history of the title ‘slum’ may not be the focus of this study, I cannot continue without reasoning through the semantics of informality used within this study. Quite intentionally, I withhold from using ‘slum’—largely because of all of its inglorious associations— and opt to describe the focus of this study as ‘informal housing’. While the new millennium has seen the return of the word, largely coaxed by the 1999 launch of the UN’s ‘cities without slums’ initiative (Gilbert, 2007), the desensitization towards language in mainstream media and academic circles demands reevaluation. Attempts to classify the target population have led to a term that uses broad brush strokes to describe settlements that are anything but homogenous. “While some settlements lack every kind of service and infrastructure, others are partially serviced.

Those settlements without water may be classified as slums, but what about those settlements with provisions, but where many of the inhabitants cannot afford to pay for it?” (Ibid, 2007). Moreover, the oversimplification of the complex variations of housing and human settlements conjures a false reality of the settlement while tarring the image of the dweller. Radical writers like Mike Davis have gone so far as to warn that these ‘urban badlands’ are the new territory from which crime and insurgency will spring (Davis, 2006).

Despite understanding its possible pejorative connotation, some scholarship purposely uses the world slum to reflect the official, legal and policy contexts of respective regions.

Similarly, this study uses ‘slum’ when addressing an official policy or the French equivalent ‘bidonville’ in tandem with ‘informal housing’ to reflect the legal context of the Kingdom of Morocco.

Known more commonly as munatik, ‘ashwa’iya, or mukhalifa areas, in varying dialects of the Arabic language, informal dwellings have become a larger part of the Arab city in the last forty or fifty years (AlSayyad, 2010). In some of the larger urban agglomerations in non-oil dependent Arab countries, informal urban development now accommodates at least half the resident population, and in many others it represents a sizable minority of the total population (Huda, 2014).

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Concrete information about the extent and characteristics of informal urban development is lacking in most cities, and—as discussed earlier—even definitions are much debated. Not surprisingly, most of what is known about the phenomenon of informal housing comes not from municipal or national authorities but from small studies carried out by foreign development agencies and institutions. In any event, there is no exhaustive body of knowledge about informal housing and settlements of the Arab world, and what is known remains very much partial and piecemeal.

Though the phenomenon of informality has become a prolific—if not unwelcome— component of many Arab cities, there have been largely unsuccessful efforts to apply Western-inspired models of housing policy and land regulation by Arab governments and their supporting elites (Huda, 2014).

While city planners grapple with the unprecedented challenges of managing land use, the state struggles with socio-political stability. In this tassel between conflicting priorities, the systematic proliferation of informal housing has been side-lined or met with transitory, remedies. The quick, “Band-Aid remedies” are arguably attributed to the varied nodes of classifying, defining and understanding informality. How can an institution effectively confront a phenomenon that it does not fully understand?

Though much is written about informal settlements—analytical, prescriptive and even pejorative—the discourse and attempted remedies have evolved significantly over the years. The long and disreputable history of informal domesticity has been rooted in campaigns to either protect the city from the ‘slum dweller’, refine the dweller’s delinquent tendencies by relocating them to ‘better’ housing conditions, or improve the aesthetic of place by eliminating the dwelling altogether. As I will demonstrate in the following sections, as the understanding of informal housing has evolved in the West, many of responses implemented in the Arab world have not kept up.

2.2 The Evolving Approaches to Informality Over the years, the understanding of informal settlements has evolved from considering them a nuisance to an integral part of the urban landscape. Similarly, slum redevelopment policies have evolved from overlooking to adapting to the needs of the slum dweller. There have been various types of interventions to deal with the slums problem worldwide including the relocation of slum dwellers to interventions, consisting of both infrastructure development and social services targeting the urban poor. The evolution of the slum redevelopment policy can be compartmentalized in four key phases: (1) Public housing; (2) Self-help; (3) Enablement; and (4) National Slum Upgrading Programs (Andavarapu and Edelman, 2013).

18 | LITERATURE REVIEW

It is important to note that although these phases emerged in chronological order, they did not supersede each other and thus they co-exist to different degrees (Jenkins and Smith, 2001).

Phase I: Public Housing The first phase - ranging from 1950 to approximately 1972 - portrayed slums as problematic organisms nurturing violence, crime, and social disruption. The popular solution was to demolish them and relocate residents to public housing projects at the outskirts of the city (Andavarapu and Edelman, 2013). The theoretical framework for this phase was informed by the culture of poverty theory of Oscar Lewis (Lewis, 1959), and marginality theory.

These theories blamed the victims for their problems and portrayed squatter settlements as a social problem. They reflected popular misconceptions, stereotypes, and assumed weaknesses associated with poor communities (Andavarapu and Edelman, 2013). Migrants from the countryside to the city were seen as maladapted to modern city life and, therefore, responsible for their own poverty and failure to be absorbed into the formal employment and housing markets.

They portrayed squatters as “others”, i.e., not part of the urban community (Ibid, 2013).

Conventional knowledge suggested that the only solution to these social problems was completely wiping out informal, substandard housing and relocating its dwellers to “decent” housing. This seemingly logical view of the population at large, legitimized by social scientists, was used to justify public policies of slum clearance (Perlman, 1976; Arefi, 2008).

While the policies of this phase were used across the world, the intellectual centers were Europe and America. More specifically, the two World Wars can be identified as critical points of shift in terms of housing delivery (Jenkins, Smith, and Wang, 2007).

Whereas the First World War saw significant intervention of the state in housing through freezing rents and consequently reducing private rental supply, it did not lead to large-scale state investment in housing (Ibid, 2007). The Second Wold War, however, reduced existing state and private housing investment dramatically through severe shortages of finance, labor, and materials and thus created high pent-up demand. In this phase of housing provision, the state was expected to provide basic, public housing for low-income or groups as well as populations that needed housing (Ibid, 2007). State intervention in housing delivery was usually in the form of apartments; public housing units that were intended to replace squatter settlements.

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It comes as no surprise that some of the first examples of slum removal policies are found in Haussmann’s design of Paris. Strategically leaving little room for low-income populations, “[his design] in opening up of Paris for thoroughfares and government buildings caused the poor to flee the city as ‘Grand Avenues’ replaced many “wretched quarters”, but no provisions were made for the lower-income classes displaced by the building process” (Rabe, 2009). New York, in the late 40s saw massive urban renewal programs, where the outdated, worn-out, and blighted areas were replaced with well planned development geared to modern standards (Weinstein, 2009).

Within the international arena, it must be noted that the post-war period entailed rapid de-colonization and a catching-up phenomenon of many of the less developed excolonies during the reconstruction of Europe (Jenkins, Smith, and Wang, 2007). It was during this period that development theory focused more heavily on imported standards of aesthetic from the Global North. Housing provision for example, was based on Western cultural and technical standards without giving much thought to the differing contexts of ‘developing’ countries. (Pugh, 1995). Janice Perlman’s seminal studies on Brazil’s Favela removals serves as a pungent example of the dominant international theories and approaches to the state’s role in housing provision during this phase. In 1970, a favela in Rio Catacumba was demolished, and the residents were moved to high-rise apartments in the peri-urban fabric of the city (Perlman, 1976). While the economic, social, and political impacts of this case of Favela removal are plentiful, the recognition of its critical impact on the urban poor and its ineffectiveness were quickly proven through extensive studies from the Americas through research by Perlman (1976), Weinstein (2009), Roy (2004) and Arefi (2008). They were ultimately successful in changing the perspective of policy makers.

Phase II: Self-Help The second phase of slum redevelopment - from 1972 to 1983 – was pioneered by the writings of John C.F. Turner’s research in Peru, emphasized by the concept of selfhelp, or slum upgrading, and tenure security. In his book Freedom to Build, he argued that by implementing components like good sewage, clean water, and good paths for people to walk on, people would gradually “improve their dwellings one brick at a time” (Turner, 1973). His experience in the Barriadas of Peru formed the premise of his claim that ‘squatter settlements were not a form of social malaise, but triumphs of ‘self-help’ efforts which needed more ‘dweller-led-control’ and ‘autonomy’, with limited government intervention (Jenkins, Smith, and Wang, 2007). Thus, the second phase of slum redevelopment policies was based on his ideas of “helping the poor help themselves” (Pugh, 1995; Davis, 2006) without common eviction and bulldozing practices.

20 | LITERATURE REVIEW

The self-help approach minimized the role of government, limiting it to providing essential environmental improvements and public services. Turner’s proposals extended these ideas and “promoted individual home-ownership and self-help involvement in progressive housing provision over time, initially stressing self-help mainly as labor (i.e. self-build), but later as self-management” (Jenkins, Smith, and Wang, 2007). Turner’s incremental construction and cost-effective program heavily influenced the 1976 United Nations Habitat Conference in Vancouver (Ibid, 2007) and his methods were quickly adopted by Robert McNamara, the then-president of the World Bank (Davis, 2006). The backbone of the World Bank’s policies for low income housing in the late 1970s can be summarized as: “homeownership and security of tenure in land and housing; the need for self-help contributions; progressive development processes for house consolidation; reduction in standards to assist affordability; improved access to financial resources; and appropriate technologies and materials” (Jenkins, Smith, and Wang, 2007).

While the self-help, or slum upgrading’ approach to housing was readily accepted by all major international agencies— as well as established as the official alternative to conventional housing supply for lower income populations (Burgess, 1992)— the mid-1970s brought the provision of ‘sites and services’ to support self-help construction.

Sites and services schemes are the provision of plots of land, either on ownership or land lease tenure, along with a bare minimum of essential infrastructure needed to live (Jenkins, Smith, and Wang, 2007). Key components of the plot of land may include infrastructure (like roads, water supply, drainage, electricity or a sanitation system), and the house itself. Thus the sites-and-services approach advocated the role of government agencies only in the preparation of land parcels or plots with certain basic infrastructure, which was to be sold or leased to the intended beneficiaries.

The next step of actual house building was left to the beneficiaries themselves to use their own resources, such as informal finance or family labor and various other types of community participation modes to build their house. At its core, sites and services schemes try to prevent the proliferation of new informal settlements and land occupations by up-fronting the land and though not always, they usually involve relocation of new housing settlements.

One of the most popular programs in this phase was the Bank’s Slum Upgrading Program (SUP). The program was founded by two key elements: 1) tenure security and 2) improving access to infrastructure through construction of toiled blocks providing access to drinking water (Andavarapu and Edelman, 2013). The Bank helped finance a total of 116 sites-and-services and/or slum-upgrading schemes in 55 nations (Davis, 2006).

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While early evaluations of slum upgrading projects in Calcutta, Jakarta and Manila indicated the success of this approach, later evaluations raised doubts (Andavarapu and Edelman, 2013). The 'minimal state involvement' advocated by Turner was clearly unable to deal with the problems typically emerging from slum upgrading efforts.

The central and most vocal of criticism of the slum upgrading approach comes from Mike Davis who argues that, under the guise of “helping the poor help themselves�, the state has withdrawn from its historical commitment to provide housing to the urban poor (Davis, 2006). In addition, the cost-recovery provision of the World Bank has effectively priced the poorest of the poor out of the market for self-help loans (Andavarapu and Edelman, 2013). Davis cites Lisa Peattie, who argues that in 1987 the bottom 30 to 60 percent of the population (depending on the country) were unable to meet the financial obligations of the slum upgrading program (Davis, 2006).

Moreover, the infrastructure improvements, such as those to water supply and sewerage, have been spotty at best, and the poor quality of construction and almost negligible maintenance has resulted in substantial system clogging (Davis, 2006; Roy, 2004). In addition, this emphasis on physical improvements without addressing the underlying structural issues which cause poverty are superficial when compared to the much needed upgrading of livelihoods, wages and political capacities (Roy, 2009).

Mukhija (2001) further identifies three flaws regarding the security of tenure policy.

First, in low-income housing, the perception of security is shown as more important than the legal status of housing; that is, the important concern is the occupant’s perception of the probability of eviction. Second, tenure itself is not sufficient to lead to higher investments, since housing finance is usually not available; and, finally, tenure legalization can hurt the most vulnerable, namely poor tenants due to increases in the cost of property and rent.

Phase III: Enablement This phase, ranging from 1983-1992, evolved from the models of assisted self-help programs to the incorporation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Enablement is defined as providing legislative, institutional, and financial framework whereby private entrepreneurs, communities and individuals can effectively develop the urban housing sector (Andavarapu and Edelman, 2013). By creating opportunities for partnerships and interdependence among state agencies, markets, NGOs, and individuals, international slum redevelopment programs were expected to show progressive results (Elyachar, 2005).

22 | LITERATURE REVIEW

Davis (2006) argues that enablement corresponded to the reorientation of World Bank objectives under the presidency of James Wolfensohn whose decade in office began in June 1995. Wolfensohn sought to make “partnership” the new centerpieces of his agenda (Andavarapu and Edelman, 2013). Third World governments were required to involve NGOs and advocacy groups in the preparation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) that the Bank now required as proof that aid would actually reach target groups (Elyachar, 2005).

In this phase, the World Bank, the United Nations Center for Human Settlements (Habitat or UNCHS) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) joined together in 1986 to form the Urban Management Program, which hoped to improve performance in developing countries in land management, municipal finance, infrastructure services, the environment, and building up the capacity of urban management institutions (Pugh, 1995).

However, due to the impacts of the global debt crisis after the oil shock of 19731974, the Global South turned to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund for financial stability. These institutions were widely aligned with the neoliberal interests of the Washington Consensus, a 1989 economic model for crisis-ridden, developing countries. Built on the footing of Western capitalism, one of the primary motivations was the reduction of barriers to international capital flow (Gilbert, 2002).

These neoliberal policies, known as Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), were imposed upon developing countries as conditionalities for debt obligation assistance.

These policies and programs, in which the Global North had a comparative advantage, reframed human settlement issues to focus on promoting local economic development.

Yet, a majority of local revenue was used to service their debt to lending countries at the expense of the development of their own populations. As a result of structural adjustment, unemployment continued to rise, poverty increased and wealth became more concentrated (Andavarapu and Edelman, 2013).

This gave rise to the work of Hernando De Soto, who attributes the failure of capitalism in the Global South to the lack of property titles. Land titling programs, intended to improve the function of land, property markets, and boost opportunities to produce capital, were seen to promote security. Furthermore, the ability to buy and sell housing would increase the choice of tenure available to households, allowing them to own or rent as they see fit. In his proselytizing piece ‘The Mystery of Capital’ De Soto argues: “If there are costs to becoming legal, there are also bound to be costs to remaining outside the law. We found that operating outside the world of legal work and business was surprisingly expensive.

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In Peru, for example, the cost of operating a business extra-legally includes paying 10 to 15 percent of its annual income in bribes and commissions to authorities. Add to such payoffs the costs of avoiding penalties, making transfers outside legal channels and operating from dispersed locations and without credit, and the life of the extralegal entrepreneur turns out to be far more costly and full of daily hassles than that of the legal businessman. Perhaps the most significant cost was caused by the absence of institutions that create incentives for people to seize economic and social opportunities to specialize within the market place. We found that people who could not operate within the law also could not hold property efficiently or enforce contracts through the courts; nor could they reduce uncertainty through limited liability systems and insurance policies, or create stock companies to attract additional capital and share risk. Being unable to raise money for investment, they could not achieve economies of scale or protect their innovations through royalties and patents” (De Soto, 2000).

While fragmented successes may have presented themselves in De Soto’s work, the larger framework of his argument has been criticized by both academics and activists.

Academic criticism centers on De Soto’s methodology, while activist criticism revolves around ideological differences. A third type of criticism has to do with the connection between formal titling and culture, as well as related pragmatic considerations.

Economists like Robert Samuelson think De Soto’s approach simplifies the role of property rights, and is perhaps swayed by cultural systems. More specifically, Peru is somewhat unique in that almost all of the property involved is government owned. Other countries have squatters and migration also, but the land involved is private, and often — as in the case in Honduras — plots often have many people claiming ownership. All over Latin America, title claim disputes are hung up in courts for years, because the courts are overwhelmed (Samuelson, 2001).

Ultimately, it was seen that tenure issues could not entirely be resolved by land titling.

Titling was more useful to elite and middle income groups who could afford to bother with financial leverage, risk and real estate markets. For very poor squatters living in the urban core, with titling programs gaining popularity, once they were evicted, they could not find a decent new place to settle and lost the crucial geographic advantage they once had in the labor market (Gilbert, 2002). Moreover, Alan Gilbert’s more recent critiques of de Soto argue against the effectivity of property titles in cities like Bogota, Colombia in that granting legal title has made very little difference and has “fanned the delusion that anyone can become a fully-fledged capitalist” (Gilbert, 2012).

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Phase IV: National Slum Upgrading Programs The present-day approach to slum redevelopment promotes the marriage of urban poverty reduction and the promotion of the role of cities in sustainable development.

This phase started with the “Cities without Slums” initiative launched by Cities Alliance, a group comprising several supra national agencies including UN Habitat and the World Bank. The initiative calls for countries or cities to adopt national or civic level comprehensive slum policies (Cities Alliance, 1999). It aims to improve the lives of 100 million slum dwellers by the year 2020 while offering members of the program autonomy to design and implement their slum redevelopment strategies. This target of improving human settlements was subsequently incorporated into the United Nations Millennium Declaration in 2000 as Target 11 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and has maintained its place in the recently approved Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Programs like the ‘Cities without Slums’ initiative have been received with severe backlash from academics and practitioners alike who critique the campaign’s largely unachievable goal of ridding themselves of slums, moreover encouraging the adoption of dangerous ‘instant solutions’ that stereotype the slum dweller and justify mass slum clearance. Many slum upgrading programs, specifically in Colombia and South Africa, have presented a dilemma that shows a clear misunderstanding of the central problem.

Instead of truly understanding the root of the informality, some of these national programs have brewed more fundamental inequalities (Gilbert, 2007). Nonetheless, campaigns to upgrade the settlements have presented fantastic opportunities for innovation and reduction of deplorable housing conditions.

Morocco’s Villes San Bidonvilles (Cities without Slums) program is an example of continued and fluctuating efforts to improve and/or eradicate slum settlements in the region. What is especially valuable in this study is the motivations and strategy applied by the Government of Morocco to effectively execute the program. This writing will explore the unique methods of slum redevelopment contextualized by the regions history of Structural Adjustment and economic and political instability.

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2.3 Relevant Programs and Initiatives In this study, I reference two provocative slum upgrading programs, one of a national scale in Thailand and one from a city-wide scale in Brazil. Both offer new and interesting strategies critical to the Moroccan context of slum upgrading. Specifically, these programs prioritize (a) the role of social support and participation of communities in the design and implementation of slum upgrading operations; and (b) the integration of social development and income-generating activities with the physical upgrading of the housing conditions.

2.3.1 Thailand’s Baan Makong Upgrading Program In 2003, the Thai Government launched an ambitious slum and squatter upgrading program called Baan Makong, or Secure Housing, to improve housing, living and tenure security for 300,000 households in 2,000 poor communities in 200 cities within five years (Boonyabancha, 2005). The program was built on the government experience of the previous decade of providing loans, small grants, and community welfare funds (for education, income generation and other welfare) to community organizations and their networks. Baan Makong was implemented by the Community Organizations Development Institute (CODI), which is an independent public organization, whose board comprises representatives from Government and from community organizations.

The program channels government funds in the form of infrastructure subsidies and housing loans directly to poor communities, which plan and carry out improvements to their housing environment and to basic services (Ibid, 2005). The communities and their networks, firstly, work with local governments, universities and NGOs in their city to survey local poor communities and plan an upgrading plan to improve conditions for all of these issues within three or four years. Once the plans have been finalized, CODI channels the infrastructure subsidies and housing loans directly to the communities.

Upgrading existing settlements is supported whenever possible; if relocation is necessary, a nearby site is sought to minimize the economic and social costs to the households.

The program recognizes the large investments that communities have already made on their homes, therefore it imposes as few conditions as possible in order to give them the freedom to design their own programs. Infrastructure subsidies per family of $625 are available for in-situ upgrading, $1,125 for re-blocking—defined as reallocating the existing land to better accommodate all families along more rational alignments

26 | LITERATURE REVIEW

imposed by the provision of municipal infrastructure—and $1,625 for re-location (Ibid, 2005). Households are able to draw on low-interest loans from either CODI or banks for housing. There is also a grant equal to 5 percent of the total infrastructure subsidy to help fund the management costs for the local organization or network.

Urban poor community organizations and their networks are the key actors, and they control the funding and the management of the program. They—rather than contractors—undertake most of the building, which makes funding go much further and brings in their own contributions(Ibid, 2005). Secure tenure is negotiated in each instance, through a variety of means such as cooperative land purchase, long-term lease contracts, land swaps or the establishment of user rights. But in all cases, the emphasis is on communal (rather than individual) tenure.

The program is based on the active participation and the defined roles of the slum communities in its design and implementation (Ibid, 2005). It starts by clearly identifying the stakeholders and explaining the program, organizing network meetings—which may include visits from people in other cities—organizing meetings in each urban poor community—involving municipal staff if possible—and establishing a joint committee to oversee implementation. The committee includes community and network leaders, the municipality, local academics and NGOs. This joint committee meets with the representatives of all urban poor communities, organizes a detailed survey and develops the community upgrading plan (Ibid, 2005).

2.3.2 Brazil’s Ribeira Azul Upgrading Program An integrated approach to urban upgrading was implemented in the neighborhood of Ribeira Azul in the city of Salvador, State of Bahia, Brazil since 1999 under a program called Viver Melhor, or Living Better. This program combined infrastructure and social interventions and was perceived as highly successful in terms of its implementation and positive impact on living conditions. The integrated and participatory approach has been implemented by the State with the assistance of grant funding from the Italian Government through Cities Alliance for the provision of technical assistance and social development activities.

Ribeira Azul covers approximately 4 square kilometers along a coastal inlet with 40,000 families and 135,000 individuals, and is part of a broader area which has been characterized as ‘high risk’ situated in a flood prone zone, with a large number of squatter settlements, insecure land tenure, a highly polluted environment by household and industrial waste, poor social indicators (the lowest in the city), and very limited

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access to infrastructure and basic services (Baker, 2005). The Ribeira Azul Program skillfully combined physical interventions with investments to improve the social and economic conditions of the area’s population. This includes housing and infrastructure improvements (i.e. roads, water, sanitation, street lighting), and programs in health care, child nutrition, education, training, and income-generation through the creation of cooperatives (Ibid, 2005). Community participation was a fundamental aspect of the program. The project has been implemented by CONDER (Urban Development Company of the State of Bahia), the Italian NGO AVSI and the local NGO CDM. This integrated approach is now the basis for the State’s urban development strategy and will be implemented State-wide through a World Bank project (Baker, 2005).

In view of the generalization of this integrated upgrading approach, an impact assessment was carried out on the Novos Alagados II site, to assess the degree of satisfaction of the communities with the infrastructure and social investments.

Residents have benefited from a child nutrition program, a pre-school day-care program coupled with the training of pre-school monitors, access to educational facilities for students in grades 1-8, a youth sports program and a professional training program.

While access to these social welfare services had not been generalized, the degree of satisfaction of those households and residents that had benefited from them was high, and the overall demand was for continued public support to such social investments (Ibid, 2005). It appears also that their provision had been a significant factor in discouraging households from cashing in on the physical improvements to their dwellings and re-selling the housing units (Ibid, 2005).

02. “The Distance Within - the Distance Between” Mosque Doorway in the city of Asilah (Ibrahim, W. 2015)

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Chapter 03

MARRAKECH IN CONTEXT

3.1 City Overview Marrakech is distinguished by its important role in the history of the Maghreb region.

Serving as a royal capital under several dynasties and a central part of the TransSaharan caravan trade (Gottreich, 2007), the imperial city encapsulates the exocticized allure of the Maghrebi culture. From the iconic red sandstone walls that dominate the aesthetic makeup the of city—earning Marrakech the title of The Red City—to its densely packed vendors and open shops in the Medina (pre-colonial city), Morocco has preserved remnants of an old fortified city while evolving into one of the region’s busiest commercial and tourist attractions. Proudly housing the largest souk (traditional Berber market), the city’s traditional craft industry employs a significant percentage of the population.

Urban living in Morocco has been under severe pressure. First, tourism is growing at increasing rates in Morocco 3.2% per year (World Bank, 2014). The reigning Moroccan monarch, Mohammed VI, has the goal of doubling the number of tourists visiting Morocco to 20 million per year by 2020 compared to the current rate of approximately 9.8 million tourists per year (World Bank, 2014). Second, opportunities for artisanal employment have augmented stress on the urban infrastructure. Currently, Marrakech is serviced by the Menara International Airport nearly 2 miles southwest of the city center, the city is conveniently accessed via European flights as well as flights from Casablanca and several Arab nations. Additionally, the Marrakech railway station which connects the city to Casablanca and northern Morocco. As of 2015, plans for a proposed tramway are also underway.

Demographic growth and rural exodus coupled with the city’s heterogeneous landscape and chaotic planning models—as opposed to the rational planning model which outlines specific steps to civic planning (Taylor, 1998) — has translated into a housing crisis in the region forcing the population to resort to informal housing alternatives. The gradual urbanization and growth of neoliberal markets have added to the pressures facing lowincome and largely marginalized populations in the city. The following sections explain these drastic demographic changes in the context of the Marrakech.

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 

 













 



Misc Property and Green Space Commercial and Residential Property

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

03. Marrakech Context Map (Ibrahim, W. 2015)

3.2 Population Structure Official figures show Marrakech as the fourth largest city in Morocco, housing 928,850 inhabitants in 2014 against the 843,575 residents in 2004 (Haut-commissariat au Plan, 2012). It may be noted that the rates of total population have been increasing constantly since 1920. Current rate of urbanization for the city of Marrakech is 5.5 % (Ibid, 2012). The growth is largely attributed to the increase in Muslim population through migration from rural areas, as well as foreign migration from investment in luxury villas and commercial estates (Chbib, 1976; Knoema, 2014). The city displays visible challenges with absorbing the ever-growing pace of tourist arrivals and new investors without endangering the unique qualities that attract visitors from around the world. Residents of the Medina and of the city in general, suffer from the rising cost of food, electricity, rents, and in general their diminished purchasing power. Wages have not kept up with increases in the cost of living. There is evidence that that long-time residents of the Medina have left because of the high costs of living there and the fact that better housing conditions can be found outside the Medina, possibly in substandard housing development.

04. Urban Growth of Marrakech Medina 1915-2015 Wilbaux Quentin, La Medina de Marrakech Paris L’Harmattan, 2001. p. 280.

The city’s population density reaches about 350 inhabitants per hectare (Travel Guide Marrakech, 2016) . This figure is somewhat inflated by large open spaces within the city’s limits. The actual density varies between the several districts of the city. Though the exact population density of each of the districts of Marrakech’s periphery is unavailable in this study, we use data from neighboring cities as a proxy to compare the density of villas district and the Old Medina’s density. The latter is almost 200% denser than the nearby settlements.

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3.3 Commerce & Employment Marrakech is the regional and administrative center of southern Morocco and, as such, ensures the economic activities and services of its residents. Until the early 1990s, the city’s main revenues depended on agriculture and commerce. Though it was always a major destination for residents of the south and sub-Saharan countries, the city’s reputation outside Morocco grew to become an elite tourist destination. The rapid expansion of the tourist economy and both domestic and foreign investment in the residential sector starting in the mid-1990s, the economy has grown significantly and is now relatively diversified (IDB Report, 2006). The main activities in the four main sectors of the economy—crafts, tourism, agriculture and commerce— made a significant contribution to the economic expansion of Marrakech: •

The crafts sector is dynamic and highly diversified, with artisanal crafts including copper work, jewelry, textiles, ceramic, leather, woodwork, furniture, and lamps.

•

Tourism, with over 900 boutique hotels, riads, restaurants and other tourist services (excursions, exotic beauty spas, guided tours, etc.) (The Maghreb, 2001)

•

Construction of recreational or second homes, including homes and villa complexes in the Palmeraie and in the outskirts of Marrakech

•

Expansion of the transportation industry and tourist services

•

The tertiary sector, including bank services and telecommunications, as well as the Palais des Congrès and the teaching sector associated with Cadi Ayyad University (Ibid, 2001).

•

Agricultural production, consisting mainly of citrus and plant oils being sold to both domestic and international markets (Ibid, 2001).

Commercial Activities Commercial activities are well developed in Marrakech. There are an estimated 30,000 licensed commercial units in the city and about 60,000 people working in the sector (Bigio, 2010). An indication of the changes in the sector’s distribution mechanisms is the decline in the Mellah, the original Jewish neighborhood—located not far from Place Jamaa El Fna— once one of the most popular shopping areas for residents of Marrakesh.

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The 2015 Mellah Rehabilitation Program, jointly financed by the Ministry of Housing and Urbanism and the city of Marrakech, is part of a broader effort to support cultural and tourist development in Marrakech and preserve neighborhoods of touristic circuits (North Africa Post, 2015).

Public Service The public-service sector, made up of the administration and education, presents a major contribution to the economy. It is the city’s biggest employer, with about 13 percent of the active population in the Medina of Marrakesh and 25 percent in MenaraGueliz. The creation of Cadi Ayyad University, with 25,000 enrolled students, has also helped breathe new life into the local economy, while adding to the number of skilled workers in Marrakech. The university’s presence offers many opportunities. For example, it recently launched a Master’s program in Cultural Heritage and Tourism Management with about 50 students who will add to the human resources operating in these sectors. The university is also a partner in projects financed by the European Commission, such as the TRAINMONHER project and Euromed Heritage III (Bigio, 2010).

Tourism Tourism is a vital force in the economic development of the city of Marrakech. It is a long-standing historical phenomenon linked to tombs of the Seven Saints of Marrakech, bringing visitors from across the continent (Gottreich, 2007). The city has seen remarkable growth in its tourism revenues over the past decade, spread out through the year in a relatively stable cycle. Recent trends suggest that there will be a significant increase in tourist facilities in Marrakech in the coming years (Bogaert, 2011). Prominent high-end hotel establishments include English investments of the Forte group and international investments of Mandarin Oriental, among others, that are opening new deluxe niche hotels and restaurants in the outskirts of Marrakech.

3.4 Urban Housing As several studies have shown, one of the characteristics of Marrakech is the heterogeneous and diversified nature of its urban landscape (Gheris, 2006; Abu Lughod, 1981). To understand the urban makeup of Marrakech, I compartmentalize the city’s housing and commercial developments into five categories: (1) Old Medina, (2) New Town: Gueliz, (3) Satellite Towns, (4) Tourist Districts, and (5) the Urban Douar.

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Old Medina The Medina of Marrakech, the largest in Morocco, lies at the heart of the city and of the region. The age-old medina consists of 2-3 story houses with patios no apparent social segregation (Gheris, 2005). Its public spaces, whether the legendary Jemaa el-Fna Square or the narrow passages of the souk, also provide the stage for the city’s commerce, social interaction, and recreational activities. In contrast to other historic cities in which the original functions of public spaces have become obsolete or displaced, the Medina of Marrakech retains its core position in the life of the city. A UNESCO designated world heritage site, the Medina is a vibrant urban space filled with monumental doors, commercial and residential districts, civil and religious monuments, homes, historic gardens, and its unique 11th century khettara (water conveyance system). The Mellah in the southeast Kasbah area of the medina, was and remains today, to a lesser extent, the Jewish quarter of Marrakech.

New Town The Ville Nouvelle, or Gueliz as it has come to be known today, is quite varied in use and make-up, serving both commercial and residential purposes. The new town is quite varied in use and makeup—made up of subdivisions housing upper-middle and upper-class European and Moroccan families—where a few . Gueliz also houses several commercial and service areas, industrial zones, and high-end hotel areas.

Many components of the district were built by French architects and look as though they have been transplanted from Europe itself. Guilez is quite a varied neighbourhood, where a few colonial buildings, structures from the 1980s, small houses and new luxury apartment buildings coexist in a strange monochromatic harmony. Although one may find virtually anything in the souks in the Medina, you will not find Zara shops or McDonald‘s restaurants. We could say that, in this sense, Guilez is a sort of ‘European relief‘ to the French colonizers. While the origins of the new town date back to nearly 1914, as a space for the French-European population in Marrakech, its current use does not fall far from its initial intent. Though it was build adjacent to the existing Medina, just outside the city walls, the grid layout of the streets and tree-lined boulevards establish a visible division between the pre and post-colonial spaces.

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New Town Gueliz New Development Daoudiate

Old Medina

Palmerai

Agdal Gardens Hivernage 05. Urban Housing Dynamics of Marrakech (Ibrahim, W. 2015)

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Urban Douars A substantial population of the city’s low-income population and migrants live in substandard housing communities known as douars, or a variation of slums, constructed of mud and corrugated metal sheets. These areas are unauthorized and have minimum services and are frequently overcrowded. According to the 1998 census of unauthorized houses, urban Marrakech had 156 douars against only sixty-one in 1991, representing nearly 22 percent of the total urban population of the agglomeration (Gheris, 2005). I return to this unique housing category in more detail in the next chapter.

06. Douar of Marrakech Daoudiate Neighborhood (Ibrahim, W. 2015)

3.5 Neoliberal Reform and Urban Volatility The last several decades marked significant changes in Morocco’s political climate.

Along with several countries in the region, Morocco faced severe public deficit crisis forcing it to adopt stabilization and adjustment programs supported by IMF financing facilities and by World Bank structural adjustment loans. From the start, attempts to alleviate urban poverty in Morocco were intertwined with neoliberal policies promoting global market integration.

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Contemporary analysis of capitalist economies shows that ‘urban poverty does not emerge from the poor man’s exclusion, but from his particular inclusion in the neoliberalized local economies’ (Bush, 2004).

As was the case in Morocco, these strategic attempts to integrate populations and places—such as slums— into the market space welcomed economic grievances and uneven development. Though there were undeniable successes produced by these measures, they also came with severe social costs and provoked nearly a decade of violent urban street protests and social disturbances nationwide (Bogaert, 2011).

Riots erupted in cities like Casablanca in 1981 and Marrakech in 1984, pushing for creative, yet provocative, state interventionist policies evolving during the 1990s (Zemni and Bogaert, 2009). A major program to address substandard housing was launched in the 1980s, the National Agency for the Prevention of Substandard Housing (ANHI) was established for that purpose. Most pertinent to our discussion however, is the radical shift in Morocco’s urban management policies set in motion by the 2003 suicide bombings in Casablanca. Claimed to be the deadliest string of terrorist attacks in the country’s history, the explosions were stationed in areas of high foreign traffic including the Hotel Farah, a Jewish community center, the Casa de España club and near the Belgian Consulate (Maghreb Daily, 2003). Though the motives behind these attacks are speculative, there is reasonable claim that the bombings were designed to undermine a pro-Western Arab government that had allied with European nations and the United States at the expense of its own people. (Navez-Bouchanine, 2009). The perpetrators of these attacks hailed from Sidi Moumen, a large slum in the suburbs of Casablanca, reinforcing the stigmatized characterization of the slum as the cause of all civic instability.

It is critical to understand that for Marrakech, which derives much of its foreign income from tourism, a principle concern was maintaining the security of its citizens and preserving the image of a healthy and attractive tourist destination. The securitization of the country heavily motivated and accelerated new modalities of governmental agencies whose primary goal was mitigating urban violence and instability. From these events onwards, urban restructuring and the implementation of neoliberal reforms took a securitization approach, approaching the complete eradication of slum settlements as the solution to urban violence (Maghraoui, 2008). The most salient de facto initiative being the crux of this thesis study: Villes Sans Bidonvilles programme, or the Cities without Slums Program.

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Chapter 04

BIDONVILLES OF MARRAKECH

4.1 “Tin-Can Cities” In the past half century, the urban landscape of Marrakech has changed enormously responding to the combined pressures of demographic growth, urbanization, and the gradual modernization of the national economy. The once-colonial urban settlements have become the cores of expanding and sprawling modern towns, which have adopted European standards of land-use, urban planning, and design of residential typologies.

In alignment with this urban expansion, providing the urban elite with modern-day surroundings and accommodations, the city has also encountered rampant proliferation of bidonville settlements in the peri-urban areas of its towns.

The French word “ Bidonvilles” meaning tin-can cities, is widely used to describe many of the squatting areas and shanty towns seen in Morocco (Chbib, 1976). In Marrakech— as well as Rabat— Bidonvilles are characterized by the local word ‘Douar’, which refer to any group of huts constructed within a protection wall made of branches, bamboo, thatch, reed, etc. and usually having one main gate. Though other cities in the country exhibit the phenomenon of ‘bidonvillization’, the precarious housing types that dominate the landscape of Marrakech differ, at least in appearance and structure, from slums in the rest of the country (Abu Lughod, 1981).

A detailed study of the origin and development of the douar, the condition in which they exist therein (physical, social and economic) and a complete analysis of these conditions, is an important prerequisite for understanding of the housing crisis in Marrakech. This chapter is dedicated to doing just that.

4.2 Origins and Development The striking contrast between the spectacular urban high-rise developments and European storefronts in Gueliz (new city) and the distinct maze-like, unpaved streets displaying artisanal crafts of the historic medina (old city) can be seen as a cause of informal housing and classist division embedded in the urban history of Morocco.

Contentiously referenced as a state of ‘urban apartheid’ (Abu Lughod, 1981), scholars attribute this spatial segmentation to failed colonial management under the auspices of Resident General Hubert Lyautey and chief planner Henri Prost. While out of ‘best intentions’ to preserve medieval Morocco, the vision of Lyautey created a system of cultural and religious apartheid, segregating Europeans in new, spacious, planned cities, while confining Moroccans to the oldest cities which he decreed should be touched as little as possible (Abu-Lughod, 1980).

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The systematic attempts to monopolize urban policy and enforce laws that conserved the medina by making it uncongenial for European residence and simultaneously designing zoning laws in the French ville nouvelle (new city) to keep native Moroccans out. These French instituted caste cleavages of social and spatial segregation were progressively transformed by the late 1940s into ‘complex but rigid systems of class stratification along ethnic lines (Abu-Lughod, 1980).

The monetization of tax during the French protectorate forced commodities into the exchange market, causing the rampant growth of a proletarian labor force (Chbib, 1976). Disrupting Morocco's longstanding subsistence production cycle and pressurizing citizens to sell labor for cash pushed vulnerable rural workers to seek alternative opportunities in urban centers. While the new changes in tax systems drastically heightened the rate of urbanization caused by redistribution of population from rural to urban, other factors during this period (1926-1947) included: (1) the drop of mortality rates in urban areas, where a natural increase became an important cause of population growth in Morocco for the first time; (2) colonial expansion into the hinterlands; and (3) immigration from abroad after the end of world war II (Abu-Lughod, 1980; Chbib, 1976).

The bidonvilles were created and have grown to their current size, as a result of many social, economic, and political disturbances over the last seventy-five years (Chbib, 1976). While the new changes in tax systems drastically heightened the rate of urbanization caused by redistribution of population from rural to urban, other factors during this period of 1926 to 1947 are worth noting. These factors may be traced through an analysis of the historic proliferation of the city’s bidonville settlements.

The continuing rural exodus into the city was accompanied by decrease in working opportunities (Ibid, 1976). This resulted in a state of semi-employment for a great sector of the population and had a significant effect on the flourishing of the bidonvilles. The administration became acutely aware of the seriousness of the situation. However, before they could cope with it, World War II began and complicated the picture with a great influx European immigrants into Morocco, fleeing before the advance of the German forces (Ibid, 1976). Capital funds were also transferred from Europe and invested in Morocco, thus strengthening the industrial foundation of the country. The situation attracted more Moroccan migrants to the larger cities, such as Casablanca and Marrakech. As a result, more Bidonvilles and douars were created without any urban planning or municipal control (Ibid, 1976).

42 | THE BIDONVILLES OF MARRAKECH

The year 1945 was the most catastrophic agricultural year of the century in Morocco.

Certain regions in the south had no crops at all. Hunger drove a multitude of families on the roads to the north. In spite of the state’s efforts to prevent migration to cities, thousands of migrants entered the city, thus contributing to the already existing Bidonvilles problems (Ibid, 1976). Again, new informal settlements such as the Douar Ben Youssef, located to the south of the Medina, were born. In 1952, the Moroccan revolution forced the French government to reconsider its policy towards the urbanization of the region’s larger cities, thus encouraging urban construction of affordable housing. Nevertheless, the effect of this policy was minimal on the growth of informal housing which continued to expand as the population grew.

As a result of Moroccan independence in 1954, and the takeover by a national government, decisive changes were expected. Again, migration to Marrakech continued to increase (Abu Lughod, 1981). Moroccan migrants seeking new job opportunities, especially in the sector vacated by the French administration, further compounded the problem. This resulted in new change in the social structure of the city. Though the new administration tried not to disturb the existing economy, French capital remained active and all the important sectors of the city functioned as before independence (Chbib, 1976). In the early 1960s, a number of disastrously poor crops accelerated considerable the unemployment and inflation, living conditions in the Old Medina and the Bidonvilles became intolerable. This led to the social unrest of 1965.

The government attempted a solution for this problem by urging— in some instances ordering the unemployed—through speeches and radio broadcasts, to return to their villages and farms in the rural areas. Some jobless migrants were even put in trucks and sent back to the rural countryside. These efforts still failed to relieve the pressure of the city and proved to be an ineffective solution. As the rate of urbanization continued to climb, the influx of migrants continued into the early 1970s making urban poverty a core issue of the region (Chbib, 1976). Housing and unemployment became two problems that needed urgent attention. Migrants into Marrakech did not have enough time to urbanize before they were disrupted by a new wave of immigrants in their midst (Ibid, 1976).

Reception areas where immigrants first settled had very poor facilities. The continuous population exodus into the city overflowed to its outskirts which became as crowded as the urban center.

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4.3 Douar of Marrakech There are seven major douar within the city of Marrakech. These are shown in figures 07 and 08. It may be noticed that although the Bidonvilles stretch throughout the city, the larger ones are located at the periphery, or what used to be the periphery, of the city and close to major markets. As shown in figure 08 the douar of Marrakech are found in six segments of the city; Menara, Gueliz, Annakhil, Medina , Kasbah and the largest among them in Sidi Youssef with an estimated 80,000 inhabitants (Sebti, 1985).

The total population of these douar is still unknown. The uncertainty of this value is largely due to the fact that the Department of Statistics is reporting only the number of registered permanent residents in these major agglomerations. These figures, therefore do not take into consideration the large yet undetermined number of residents who live in the douar, as well as new migrants, relatives and friends of permanent residents. In addition, a government tendency to underestimate the number of bidonville inhabitants, for political or administrative reasons, should be noted.

Informal Neighborhood, Casablanca

Douar Skouilla, Rabat

07. Informal Neighborhood vs. Douar Rabat; Casablanca, Morocco (Bogaert, 2011b) (above)

08. Construction Material of Douars Marrakech, Morocco (Sebti, 1985) (right)

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Oued Tensift

Chaduf

Sraghna

El Goundafi

Sidi Daou

Ain Itti

Assif Quarter Sidi M’Barek

Daoudiate

Military Camp

Gueliz Oued Issyl Industrial Quarter

Medina

Menara

Yossef Ben Ali

Bou Akkaz

Aguedal

Construction Material of Douars Adobe Cement Koukou Adobe + Ciment Mix

100

0

200

300

1 km Number of Total Dwellings

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CASABLANCA Oued Tensift

SAFI Sraghina Oulad Chaouf Hmar

El Goundafi

Oued Issyl

Sidi Abbad

Sidi Yahya

Guennoun Sidi Daou

Akioud 7 El Koudiat

SOUEMLA

Tounsi

FES-MEKNES Sidi M’barek 6

Lahrach

3 El Fekhara

ESSAOUIRA 5

1

4

Lakhil

2

Iziki

Laarab

Dour Jadid

Agedal Gardens

Chaouf

Boumbi

OUARZAZATE M’Hamid

Bou Akkaz

TAROUDANT

Caid Omar Koukou

OUARIKA LEGEND Urban or Satellite Douar

Mixed Douar Rural Douar

6000h 3000h

1 Medina 2 Sidi Youssef Ben Ali 3 Gueliz 4 Hivernage 5 Industrial Quarter 6 Military Camp 7 Daoudiate

1000h

Urban Perimeter 0

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1km

4.4 Types of Douar and Bidonville As recorded by Dr. Adnan Chbebi of Morocco, the douar and bidonville dwellings of Marrakech may be classified according to legal status and function into four major types as follows :

Spontaneous bidonvilles are illegal settlements often constructed in different areas of the city on abandoned private or government land. This type of bidonville generally does not receive any municipal services such as water, sewage, electricity, roads, health services, etc. The size of these bidonvilles, however, is relatively small and declining. Despite nationwide efforts to curb the prevalence of substandard housing, authorities largely chose not to prosecute such illegal occupation of land so long as no serious social issues are prompted.

Planned bidonvilles originated as privately owned land, rented out to bidonville migrants for an annual rent of 50 to 60 Moroccan Dirham for every 20 square meters of area. These bidonvilles receive minimum municipal services consisting of water pipes and garbage collection. Such bidonvilles have been developed and enlarged to include huts that were scattered throughout the city (whose owners were forced to move on due to enforcement of laws against squatting). The inhabitants of these settlements however, are constantly threatened by having to move to other sites, should part of or all of the land be sold and the new owner wishes to change the use of his land. Since 1956, the government has been attempting to eliminate these types of dwellings by purchasing the land from the speculators and turning them into government controlled housing developments. (cite interview with Ministry of Urbanism) Assembled bidonvilles of Marrakech, though varying greatly, are categorized as the specifically assigned plots for bidonville and douar settlements created out of national level pressures to eliminate bidonvilles. These state-assembled dwellings enjoy adequate municipal services consisting of water pipes, postal delivery, garbage collection and access to health services. Often, dwellers receive limited property titles in these conditions. Though, it must be noted that these dwellings are heavily dependent on and influenced by the demands and volatile agenda of the state.

09. Typologies of Peri-Urban Douar of Marrakech Marrakech, Morocco (Sebti, 1985)

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Ahkaf bidonvilles are properties in Marrakech that are a type of religious-inherited, family-shared land ownership which cannot be sold or transferred out of kinship bonds.

While some of small douars have been erected on certain Ahkaf property, a significant portion of this property was purchased by the state in 2001 using eminent domain laws.

In partnership with local communes, acquisition of these properties was made easier.

The commune’s authority was used to acquire land from proprietors that declined to cooperate with the state, ultimately becoming like the assembled bidonville plots mentioned previously.

4.5 Existing Physical Conditions The informal planning of most Marrakech douars has a similar pattern, the physical conditions vary. Thousands of square meters of corrugated iron sheets, which constitute the roofs of these barracks are covered by every available heavy object such as stone, rock, wooden boxes, boards, scrap, iron, etc. to protect from incremental weather. These settlements are normally void of large open spaces or playgrounds. Housing units are grouped into vast rectangular blocks separated by unpaved roads, and sometimes walls built by the state to shield the city from the ‘unsightly’ view of dense, unregulated housing. Often, these unpaved roads are used as public spaces or playgrounds for children. The harsh, arid heat common to Marrakech coupled with the metal roofing of informal dwellings acts as an on oven, creating unbearable living conditions. The winter season is no better, as the unpaved roads and walkways become muddy due to limited drainage and the interiors are equally cold.

Resources like drinking water, electricity, sewage vary from settlement to settlement.

For the most part, drinking water is obtained from stand pipes installed by the municipality. These, however, are not adequate in number and are therefore normally very crowded, especially in summer. Sewer or drainage services are not readily available in these dwellings, though in some cases sewage piping has been installed along with road construction. Most of these douars are located near mosques—and if that is not the case— they contain small, one-room or outdoor mosques within the vicinity of the settlement. Mosques are also used as Madrassa’s, or religious schools although there are several regular schools that surround each bidonville servicing the inhabitants of the bidonville. These schools are usually capped at 8th grade education levels.

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The availability of health services, police, and public baths are available in the vicinity of most Marrakech douars, though there exist barriers to obtaining certain health and legal services. Elaborate state-funded, social housing programs have been constructed near some of larger Marrakech douars, intended to re-house the inhabitants of the bidonvilles. However, these residential projects hardly solved the problem of informal dwellings, where they may have undoubtedly provided more comfortable housing for the former bidonvilles residents, they could not replace the bidonvilles. Vacancies were quickly filled by the constant flow of new migrants and residents opting for more affordable housing.

4.6 Bidonville Dwellers In a city with a rapidly developing tourist and commercial economy, individuals—largely from nearby rural towns—migrate to the city with hopes of obtaining job security or artisanal training. To trace some of these migrant dwellers of the bidonvilles, I present two parallel cases. I preface this discussion with my explanation for the usage of ‘he’ when referencing migrant dwellers is due to the male dominance in the initial ruralto-urban migration process. With that, I present the first case using John Turner’s model based in Lima, Peru (Housing by People, 1997). He traced the movement of the newcomer within his new environment and established a model that identified the migrant’s typical movement into the urban context. Turner characterized three stages of urbanization: 1. Reception Conditions: the migrant stayed with friends, relatives or slept on the street, depending on the availability of jobs.

2. Center City Slum Conditions: the migrant rented a shelter within easy access to work.

3. Squatter Conditions: the migrant finally squatted to achieve sense of ownership and security after reaching a certain income level and job stabilization.

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The second case study is conducted by Christopher Benninger’s analysis (Chbib, 1976) based out of South-East Asia. Similar to Turner, Benninger characterizes four situations: 1. Reception: the newcomer is alone, unskilled, with no money, his need for shelter is minimal, searching for a temporary shelter, joining friends or relatives, spending his nights in railway stations or bedding in the streets. This period takes usually six months until he reaches some urban existence.

2. Prolonged Reception: facing difficulties integrating into the urban context. The duration of this period depends greatly on the type of work and opportunities provided by his new environment. Also, his shelter differs and with some income security, whole families may be found in this stage.

3. Intermediate Situation: the migrant is now a part of the city, is assured of working opportunity, pays a minimum rent to shelter his family who work together to generate some income. This period corresponds to Turner’s center city slum condition.

4. Consolidated Situation: his job and income relatively stabilized and he is searching for a permanent place and security within the urban context.

In the case of Marrakech, there are several patterns and situations of habitat for the newcomer. There are three initial destinations which are not necessarily identifying stages of urban development. Depending on the availability of employment opportunities, social and economic alternatives, the duration of the situations identified

by Turner and Benninger will differ.

Prior to the saturation of the bidonvilles, a newcomer to Marrakech could either bed down in the streets of the city or construct a barrack within or outside a bidonville.

Recent laws prevent such action, however. Today, a migrant normally arrives in the city with some savings which will help him until he finds a more or less secure job.

Newcomers to the city are normally destined to a specific address or have some idea about where to start their transition. In most of the cases encountered, it was found that the migrant was destined to join a family, relative, brothers or acquaintances from the same village or tribe from which he originates.

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The three main reception areas available to the migrant at his various stages of urbanization are: 1. The Old Medina in the center of the city: five different approaches to shelter are available to the migrant • he may rent a room in the “old houses” which are the Old Medina’s large single family dwelling units.The previous rich occupants of the old houses now live in the New Medina or in villas in teh European districts. These large old houses have, therefore, turned into intensive squatting areas (small bidonvilles).

• he may rent a room in a Fondouk (hotel) • he may stay with relatives • he may obtain temporary shelter in a mosque or a Madrassa (school) • he may stall all day in the Old Medina ad then commute in a group on animal driven vehicles to the outskirts to spend the night. Sleeping in the streets of Marrakech during the night is forbidden.

2. The ‘Trames Sanitaires’ - government housing districts for the poor. A complete description [see case of Marrakech, by French Architect ‘Zevaco’ in 1959]. The newcomer to the Trames Sanitaires has the following options: • join relatives • rents a room • joins a friend, members of his tribe or people of his douar 3. The Existing bidonvilles - a newcomer joining an existing bidonville has the following options: • •

rents a room in a barrack joins his tribe or brothers who are already living in the bidonville and pays a

• •

minimal rental fee joins relatives and repays a rent when he finds a job rents a room in a fondouk close to the bidonville.

Regardless of the destination, the migrant passes through a series of definite situations: The first situation is to secure a place to sleep. The second is to seek a job close to his dwelling. The third involves paying previous debts and saving a small sum while seeking private shelter. This situation may last a long time depending on the level of income of the migrant. The fourth situation is normally a consolidated situation where the migrant has a stabilized monthly income which enables him to bring his family into the city.

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While other stages are not clearly defined, it can be extrapolated that the migrant becomes absorbed in the proletarian districts which are scattered all over Marrakech or he may stay in the bidonvilles indefinitely. Some migrants, in spite of substantial monthly incomes, still prefer the environment of the bidonvilles, mainly because of security in the case of unemployment. The general movement of migrants in Marrakech is similar to that in other large cities in the world as described by Turner in the Barriadas of Lima and by Benninger in the Bastis of India.

10. Market Close, End of Day Marrakech Souk [Ibrahim, 2015]

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Chapter 05

MAPPING MOROCCO’S HOUSING INTERVENTIONS

5.1 Urban Insecurity A key component of Morocco’s urban insecurity stems from the systematic production of policies that perpetuate insecure land tenure. The region’s housing crisis is the result of decades of neglect; far before the transition from colonial rule to independence. In the wake of recent events in the Maghreb, the mounting disregard of urbanization trends and its implications have carved a pathway for informal approaches to addressing the state’s volatile approach. Before introducing the urgency with which the Villes Sans bidonvilles program was introduced and implemented in Morocco, it is is crucial to contextualize the state of the country’s housing dilemma in a brief understanding of the transformative stages and policies that framed the birth of the present day, VSB program. This chapter focuses on the early stages of colonial rule, from 1914, up until the introduction of the program in 2003.

5.2 Colonial Settlement and Anarchy, 1914 -1947 This early stage in Morocco’s colonial past is characterized by the policy of the French occupation to segregate the Old Medina of Moroccan cities from the modern French new-districts. These policies were developed by Resident General Hubert Luautey alongside French architect, Henri Prost. Though the douar seen in Marrakech today were not in the stages of development at this time, the divisions on ethnic lines can be argued as a catalyst for the future impact on the community.

Period of Anarchy was characterized by a general lack of municipal regulations, especially those connected with housing for the non-European parts of the city, including small-scale bidonvilles. Katherine Marshall (Urbanization in Morocco, p 17) characterized this period as follows: 1. the services were always directed to the French population 2. A neglect of indigenous, Muslim districts reflected on a growth in the bidonvilles 3. Unplanned developments further complicated the problems of future planning Unlike Casablanca, Marrakech was not a center for industrial growth and private enterprise. Instead, it sustained a large market for agriculture and trade. However, with the instability of employment in nearby cities influenced an influx of migration into Marrakech. This also included land speculators, who purchased and reserved large areas within the city for future development, however many of which were left undeveloped and became ground for bidonvilles and douar settlements.

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Many scholars argue that the most significant characteristic of this period was the glaring gap existing between wealthy French districts of the city, which were much better served than the low-income Moroccan areas lacking basic facilities and services.

The proliferation of informal settlements can be attributed largely to this segregation on ethnic lines. At this time, the uncontrolled growth of bidonville in cities like Casablanca was a risk to the nation’s urban structure and urged the development of nation-wide housing programs.

5.3 Planning the Colonial City (1947-1952) The deficiencies resulting from the previous period and government neglect, coupled with the growth of the urban population in Marrakech and other cities was reaching alarming proportions around this time. The prevailing trends and plans called for nothing less than the complete elimination of bidonvilles in favor of a better and healthier community. This resulted largely from a serious attempt to cope with the uncontrolled bidonville populations in Casablanca (Chbib, 1976). This period is considered by many urban scholars as the formation period for modern Moroccan planning and housing policies.

French architect, Michel Ecochard, was appointed in 1947 as head of the urban planning office in the Ministry of Interior. He is regarded today as the principal architect of the Moroccan system of urban planning and its housing policies. His initial assessment of the nation’s urban status brought light to several issues and influenced the premise of his forthcoming policies and intervention efforts. First, he saw an urgent need to reawaken the lethargic administrative mechanisms in place for civic issues and to revamp the processes of city planning to meet the demands of an evolving Morocco.

Closely linked to his concern for Casablanca, Ecochard inssisted the state play a larger role in addressing the housing issue for low-income groups and bidonville residents (Chbib, 1976).

By 1947, Ecochard had established an independent planning agency under the Ministry of Interior. Once creating a team of several French architects and city planners, he conducted a three-year study to evaluate the state of the urban infrastructure. Though his efforts were focused in Casablanca, he played a key role Morocco’s course of city planning. This was largely because of his influence on the binding master plans for the next twenty years. His plans included provisions to protect specific areas from private developers and speculators, while also establishing a foundation for semi-public and private partnerships to remedy large-scale housing demands. During his time, a large

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number of large scale housing programs, such as the well-known Sartoris, were constructed in Casablanca. Many of these developments influenced later social housing initiatives —though at varying scale—in Marrakech (Ibid, 1976). Ecochard is also known for his Trames Sanitaires, a one-story 8x8 courtyard unit with the mid-rise building and with units with patios, designed as an attempt to rehouse bidonville inhabitants in government funded social housing programs. Although the Trames Sanitaires alleviated some pressure from the bidonville proliferation, it was criticized by a number of architects (Traite, 1998; Chbib, 1976) for the following reasons: • • • •

the high construction cost due to the horizontal planning of the units rigid design of the housing units, with no room for expansion families quicklyl outgrew their living spaces and had to leave the project the project was seen as a reflection of a bureacratic system that enforced the Trames Sanitaires on the people

5.4 The Role of the FMBA The French Moroccan Building Association (FMBA) was established to assist and to provide additional housing for the bidonville residents. Projects were constructed in several cities, but starting off in Casablanca. The association constructed multi-story residential buildings, five to seven levels. Unlike the Trames Sanitaires and other collective housing projects which were sold to the residents in units, apartments of teh FMBA were strictly rental. The disadvantages of multi-story apartments were not, at the time, fully recognized. Experiences derived from the FMBA projects regarding the disadvantages of multi-story apartments for the residents of low-income families, paralleled those described by Turner (Turner, 1977) for low income multi-level housing in India. Although the buildings of the FMBA residential multi-story developments are economical, durable and may appear comfortable from the outside, one only needs to enter the buildings to appreciate the misery of their inhabitants.

The major disadvantages of the FMBA projects included (Chbib, 1976): • The limited floor plan allowed for no expansion of the unit; in order to acquire more space, many of the residents had to close off their balconies and convert them into additional living space.

• The large windows did not provide the complete privacy traditionally required by custom and religion. As a result, most residents closed off windows and the design was obstructed.

• Traditionally, Moroccan residential architecture has its private entrance, but the multi-level housing deprived them of this advantage.

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11. Marrakech City Plan, 1935 University of Texis Austin, Libraries

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• • • • • • •

Due to high density in the buildings and the lack of responsibilities for upkeep, the common entrance spaces became clustered and dirty.

The nature of the buildings did not permit domestic animals, which was an established tradition of the Moroccan family.

The restricted area allowed for no extra storage space for wood, fuel or other household necessities.

Older residents struggled climbing the several levels of stairs.

The stairways and the high elevation of the housing units constituted hazardous playing areas for children.

The volume of the rooms rendered the use of the traditional cytokine and charcoal for heating, which produced an unhealthy gas if inhaled in large quantities.

The crowded conditions caused a high level of noise throughout the buildings.

5.5 Planning after Independence (1956-1960) At the time of Morocco’s independence in 1956, the new government was confronted with an alarming level of urban housing problems. The administration which took over after the independence of Morocco, which was attained rather quickly and unexpectedly, was not equipped or prepared by the previous French administration for this suddentakeover. The new administration was faced with a great responsibility to serve and maintain the services in the modern districts of the city. The housing projects for the low-income people, therefore, did not receive government priority and the inhabitants of the bidonvilles did not have the resources not or political prowess to attract government assistance. Further exacerbating the matter, the Moroccan resident was free to move and settle wherever she wanted. As an influx of rural-urban migration brought people looking to settle and create a better life, the lack of system to obtain housing complicated the already precarious housing situation (Chbib, 1976).

While the first plans of the new administration focused on remedying the damage of the war and destabilizing the agricultural sector, housing construction continued in an unregulated fashion. Though the preparation of the five-year development plan from 1960-1964 was taking place, the time immediately after independence was largely lacking focus on the urban organization of the city (Ibid, 1976).

5.6 Key Development Phases, 1960-2000 Since 1960 the government of Morocco has developed and implemented five largescale economic development plans (Jenkins, 2007). Though each plan varied in motive, implementation and effectiveness, the plans largely built off of their predecessors.

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Phase I The first development plan was the five-year plan of 1960-1964. This plan largely emphasized infrastructural and rural development. Although there was no explicitly stated coherent policy towards urban development, urban housing was accorded the highest priority in this first five-year plan than any later plans. Several million Moroccan Dirham were allocated as public investment in housing during the implementation of these development plans (Ibid, 2007). The most important part of this policy was the government purchase and partnerships with communes to purchase large tracts of land in and around Marrakech. This was designed primarily to institute a system of land titling and future housing projects.

Phase II The second developmental plan was a three-year plan from 1965-1967. Though this developmental plan was drafted by a small group of foreign technicians, it reflected the new orientation and priorities of the king and his closest advisors. Among the priorities set in that plan, urban developments did not appear. Explicit policies for urban development occupied two pages at the end of a nearly six-hundred page development plan for 1965-1967 (Ibid, 2007). The plan recognized a basic obligation of the government to assist low-income populations obtain housing, stating that the principle objective of the plan was to combat the proliferation of informal, bidonville settlements and the overcrowding in the Medinas. During this particular planning period, the focus on housing policy was to be on the preparation of large developments of ‘state owned land’ where private individuals, ideally from bidonvilles settlements, could build their own houses, with the assistance of government programs, subsidies, and loans (Baverel, 2008).

In this ‘sites and services’ program, the planning agency is responsible for preparing a layout for the area, installing the basic services — such as roads, water, sewage, electricity—selling the lots at costs below market value, offering technical advice to the extent of providing the architectural plans and finally suggesting the building materials to be used (Ibid, 2008). The new owners have the owness to build their own houses with the assistance of a low-cost housing loan program.

Phase III The third development plan was the five year plan of 1968-1972, in which, for the first time the problem of a rapidly growing population was accorded an important place in government priorities. The plan indicated the necessity for continuing efforts to combat the spread and growth of bidonville settlements. The plan proposed that the government

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undertake new housing programs in both urban and rural areas. However, little money was allocated to public housing loans (Baverel, 2008). The central planning agency established by Ecochard in 1949 was reorganized under this particular plan, playing a significant role in the implementation and task alignment of the agency members.

The housing policies that evolved between 1968 and 1971 drew heavily on the experiences of the 1965-1967 period. The site and service modeled program formed an essential part of the new development policy. New concepts were added to this basic approach to large scale housing development and ideas that emerged from the research and studies under taken by the planning agency. These studies included capacity assemessments of bidonville residents to pay rent or to construct their own houses. The final ingredient of the new policy was a new theory that stressed the need for community action and their desirability to harness the energy of bidonville residents. Self-help, particularly in housing construction, became an important objective in itself. (Turner, 1972) In implementing this theory, the studies defined and identified three income groups and outlined a different approach to government assistance for each group. The groups were organized into three categories loans (Baverel, 2008): 4. Bidonville residents with an income over 500 Dirham a month were to be left to their own devices.

5. Those with incomes between 200 and 500 Dirham per month were to eligible for government housing that was within the site and service scheme.

6. The third income group, earning up to 200 Dirham per month, would receive assistance in obtaining land ownership of their plots on which the inhabitants could build any type of building they could afford. Government or private developers would provide service roads, water, sewage, street lighting, etc. Residents were responsible for gradual improvement of their houses with technical assistance from the Department of Urban Housing (DHU).

The scale of housing development during this time was extensive. In order to accomodate the new population of Morocco’s cities and ease the growing congestion of existing dwellings,, nearly 240,780 housing units were required (Chbib, 1976).

Additionally, over 20,000 new houses would be needed to relocate bidonville dwellers during the period of this development plan. An important development of 1972 was the legislation of a law (Loi-Cadre) reorganizing the land acquisition and the sale of the land, providing for low-income housing construction and low-cost loans, and governing most other aspects of urban development (Morocco, ministry of Interior).

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Phase IV: Sites and Services The next development plan was that of 1973-1975, very much so a continuation of the previous five-year plan. The Loi-Cadre came into effect during this phase of development, reorganizing the role of government agencies as more oriented towards the site and service scheme. A popular model during this time, was influenced by a concept described by Benninger (Chbib, 1976) and reached great success in Rabat.

The Ayakoub El-Mansour project was based off of a sites and services model aiming to remedy the housing dilemma for low-income populations by providing land titles and services rather than housing itself. The projects main characteristics included (Baverel, 2008): 1. Plots were sold to residents of bidonvilles 2. Families were permitted to erect their own barracks which could be relocated outside the bidonville 3. The family is given two years to replace its barrack with a solid structure of at least two rooms 4. The necessary services (water and sanitation) is provided at the time of purchase only at central community points 5. At the end of a ten-year period, each plot will be provided with water, sanitation and electricity and the roads will be paved throughout the project site.

6. Monthly payments were of approximately 20 Dirham during the ten-year period, covering the price of the plot and the services.

Similar to the policies developed during the 1968-1972 development phases, this five year plan provides different programs for different income groups. These are categorized as follows (Ibid, 2008): 1. Families with an income over 1,000 Dirham could afford to take care of their own housing needs without government assistance 2. Families with incomes between 350 and 1,000 Dirham were eligible to rent or purchase from government housing projects.

3. Families with incomes of 80 to 175 Dirham will qualify for the site and service program plan similar to that described for the Yakoub El-Mansour project, with the key difference being that the cost will be repayable in five years instead of ten.

4. Families with incomes of less than 80 Dirham will qualify for site and service programs and are given 15 years to repay the capital cost.

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Phase V : Self-Help Projects The following years centered around the concept of self-help, seen as a democratic problem solving approach in which the people involved participate in solving their own housing problems. Under this approach, the government provided land with minimum services in the hope that individuals will build their own dwellings with whatever resources are already available to them. This concept was largely built from the idea that once a family has land security, it will strive to build their lodgings step by step and gradually improve them throughout the years. Though the success of self-help projects, as demonstrated by Benninger 1970, Fathy, 1970, and Poething, 1971, was largely dependent on the scale of the projects. Specifically, projects servicing up to 30 families could be controlled efficiently. The administrative problems for a project servicing a larger number of families became complicated, requiring a large administrative cadre and therefore, significantly increasing the total cost of these projects. Though the concept of self-help was not new to the Moroccan villager, having been a tradition in the rural areas for many generations (Chebib, 1976), there were several differences in the implementation of the self-help project inhibiting the effectiveness of the approach.

There were however, a handful of self-help pojects considered successful in Morocco. A well-known example being the development of the Jnanet neighborhood in the outskirts of the city of Fez (Chbib, 1976; World Bank, 1982). In this particular project, government aid was minimal. The people themselves, after acquiring land from the government continued to build and change the mud structure into hard material. This projects, though not planned by the government, were started outside of the control of the city planner and were officially recognized much later. Since then, electricity, potable water, and other forms of services have been added.

Soverign City Planning The 1980’s brought a paradigm shift in the urban political vision of Morocco, where measures taken before this time were ad hoc and insufficient to deal with the complexity of increasing urbanization, and failed to provide solutions for an emerging lower middle class looking for affordable housing (Bogaert, 2011). Up until this time, the state largely tolerated the disorganized and impoverished informal expansion of its urban peripheries. The structural conditions at the beginning of the 1980s, aligning with a heavy influx of structural adjustment policies and bi-lateral donor involvement, marked an end to the benign neglect of informal housing in urban centers and peripheries.

Reforms implemented after 1981 implied above all a strengthening of central power, making security and development the two core objectives of state intervention. It is important to emphasize that much of these efforts to securitize the urban state are attributed to the the violent riots of 1981 in Casablanca. Tighter control over the urban

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territory became even more urgent after the strikes of June 1981, challenging the government’s decision to cut back on food subsidies. During the strike, riots broke out in the peripheries of Casablanca and quickly moved towards the city center (Bogaert, 2011). similar cases of civil unrest transferred the focus of urban planning strategies to informal housing settlements and the working class areas. The most pertinent institutional reconfigurations designed to respond to the volatile urban climate involved the creation of government agencies charged with the eradication of slums. Agence National pour l’Habitat Insalubre (ANHI), was a financially autonomous public institution, signaling a return to the programs of slum relocation which were popular during the final years of the protectorate (Bogaert, 2011). Many cities like Casablanca and Marrakech were expanded to absorb the bidonviles into the urban fabric. Expansion of territorial control also manifested in the development of police stations, street lights, and renovation of buildings. “Many of these spatial interventions turned the urban territory into a more calculable and governable space; as such, they sought to improve control over urban residents and their movement (Bogaert, 2011).”

Nationwide Slum Policies In 1993, the country launched diagnostic studies for the National Territorial Development Plan (SNAT) intended to highlight key population zones in the country and what areas would need immediate attention. The alarming results from the study prompted a litany of further studies, many of which were funding by bi-lateral donors and foundations. Ultimately, we fast forward to the suicide bombings of May 2003 in Casablanca that triggered new political discourse and paved the way for slum eradication policies. Seeing that the perpetrators came from two large bidonvilles in Casablanca, the bombings deepened the stigmatization of the slums as a breeding ground for crime and radical Islamists (Zaki, 2005). Bomb threats and smaller scale explosions in the tourist centers of Marrakech were a catalyst for a shift towards nationwide slum programs. In upcoming chapter, we discuss the outcome of these efforts, the Villes Sans bidonvilles program (VSBP), in extensive detail.

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Chapter 06

METHODOLOGY

6.1 Overview The objective of this study is to understand the design of the Villes Sans bidonvilles program and its unique implementation in Marrakech. There are several aspects of this program that I seek to explore: 1. What factors led to the creation of the program and how does its approach to informal settlements inform its slum eradication efforts?

2. What funding mechanisms and collaborations between state-owned and private sectors support the VSBP? 3. What components of the VSBP distinguish it from previous initiatives within the region as well as internationally?

Exploring these questions in the unique urban and political context of Marrakech will yield an opportunity to evaluate effectiveness and replicability of the VSB model on a larger scale.

The first question, investigating what led to the creation of the Villes Sans bidonvilles Program, involved on-site interviews conducted in Marrakech between August 12th, 2015 and August 19, 2015 with representatives from the Regional Prefecture (Wilayat) of Marrakech, as well as the Ministry of Housing, Urbanism and City Issues. During these interviews, I collected several official documents, plans and maps that documented the regional and national progress of the VSB program. This information was supported by earlier reports from OECD, UN Habitat, USAID, and the World Bank as well as literature detailing the sociopolitical climate of Morocco pre-VSB creation.

The second question—evaluating the VSB program’s funding mechanisms and collaborations between state-owned and private sectors—is largely addressed by interviews conducted in Marrakech between August 12th, 2015 and August 19, 2015 with Holding Al-Omrane directors, representatives from the Regional Prefecture (Wilayat) of Marrakech, as well as the Ministry of Housing, Urbanism and City Issues. Though limited in quantity, interviews with previous slum residents also assisted in mapping the historically varied modes of social housing and slum policies in the region. This helped to highlight the cases of heightened urban insecurity attributed to slum dwellers.

Third, to evaluate the factors that differentiate the components of this program from previous interventions, a thorough archival analysis was conducted reviewing documents and maps that highlighted the phases of planning and city development from the time of the French protectorate up until recent years. Many of these reports were in Arabic and French, for which a translator was contracted to assist in translating and transcribing

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documents. Interviews with the authorities from the Marrakech Wilayat and the Ministry of Housing, Urbanism and City Issues were also useful in understanding and evaluating the motives, mechanisms, and economic climate during the varying urban development visions, programs, and policies.

6.2 On-Site Interviews On-Site interviews were a primary source of data for this study. Qualitative research experts like Irving Seidman and David Silverman argue for the unmatched results of personal interviews. “Qualitative interviewing is particularly useful as a research method for accessing individuals’ attitudes and values — things that cannot necessarily be observed or accommodated in a formal questionnaire. When done well, qualitative interviewing is able to achieve a level of depth and complexity that is not available to other, particularly survey-based, approaches” (Silverman, 2006). This is especially valid given the complex layers of narration and recollection that offer insight into the motives and consequential actions of a participant, which observations alone could not provide (Siedman, 2006). While the interview-method requires a great deal of time conceptualizing the structure of the interactions, transcribing data, and evaluating the material, this method of data collection presented the most comprehensive data relevant to this study.

While there was a list of prepared questions and discussion points that were referenced during the interviews, the title and role of individual participants informed the course of the interview schedule. To decide whether the individual interviews would follow a structured interview format (set questions, asked in a specific order) or an unstructured interview format (i.e. more informal than the former, including open ended questions that could be asked in any order) were also informed by comfort, available time and willingness of the individual participant. While structured interviews are fairly quick to conduct and provide data that can be generalized to a large population, there is little room to deviate from the set schedule and ask questions that may add value to the study (Maynard, 2006). On the contrary, unstructured interviews allow for questions to be adapted and adjusted to the respondent’s answers, allowing for the respondent to talk in some depth and allow for a clearer understanding of the situation (Denzin, 1994).

However, establishing rapport and knowing when to probe is a sensitive skill that can heavily skew data collection if any hint of mistrust falls into play.

6.2.1 Content of Interviews The primary source of data for this study is personal level interviews conducted between

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August 12th, 2015 and August 19, 2015 with: • • • •

Mr. Mohamed Al-Hasisi, VSB Marrakech Director, Holding Al-Omrane director Representatives from the Regional Prefecture (Wilayat) of Marrakech Ms. Youzad Eidi, The Ministry of Housing, Urbanism and City Issues Previous Slum Residents in city of Marrakech

In total, seven representatives participated in this study. All individuals were interviewed separately. The interviews were conducted in French and Arabic, where Arabic interviews required the assistance of a translator. The interviews were recorded and then transcribed.

The interview questions dealt with issues which had predominantly been taken from literature. The participants were asked how they fulfill their role (as slum resident or authority implementing the VSBP), what changes have been made in their lives or work, what challenges they have experienced as a result of the VSBP in their lives or work, and if they have doubts about the program. Naturally, the questions were presented in the context of the participants role, position and willingness to participate in the study.

Interviewing with Holding Al-Omrane was a critical component of this study, considering the organization’s commanding role in the implementation of the VSB program. Many of the interactions and interviews with the Marrakech Wilayat were deferred to authorities at Al-Omrane— information could not be provided accurately or completely because the specific questions did not fall under the auspices of the Wilayat—because of the limited role of the regional Urban Departments.

Several interview sessions were scheduled with Al-Omrane group to evaluate their existing commercial development and social housing programs in alignment with the VSB program. Within Marrakech, Al-Omrane Group has two headquarter offices. Both for administrative and commercial development services, but with varying emphasis on each of these services. Interviews were conducted with different representatives among these offices to understand the programs, responsibilities and funding mechanisms of Al-Omrane.

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6.2.2 Structure of Interviews While there was a list of prepared questions and discussion points that were referenced during the interviews, the title and role of individual participants informed the course of the interview schedule. Interviews with previous slum residents for example, followed an unstructured interview format. This allowed for the adaptation of questions depending on the participants answers. Also, open-ended questions helped to establish an informal atmosphere where the participant felt comfortable engaging in conversation without reserving information or detail. The informal air permitted opportunities to probe for deeper understanding, clarifications, and ease in steering the direction of the interview as prescribed by research focusing on interpreting and organizing qualitative data (Silverman, 2006). The interview manuscripts and interview schedule can be found in the appendix of this study.

Representatives from Holding Al-Omrane had requested the interview questions before the scheduled interview which implied the need for a structured interview that did not deviate from the presented questions. Given the limited availability of Al-Omrane representatives, a structured approach allowed for a fairly quick interview and clear data that could be analyzed and categorized without a detailed re-evaluation of interview responses. Similarly, representatives from the Marrakech Wilayat required a structured interview due to the limited availability. The interview manuscripts and interview schedule can be found in the appendix of this study.

While the interview scheduled with the Ministry of Housing, Urbanism and City Issues was scheduled to be a structured interview, a change in the Ministry representative’s schedule permitted for a lengthy, informal interview that deviated from the originally planned interview method. The participant, once clearly understanding the purpose and intent of the study was visibly enthusiastic about contributing to the research initiative and presented several documents, updated maps, and was willing to explain and address any unclear data points from archival research and/or previous interviews with other VSBP representatives. The interview manuscripts and interview schedule can be found in the appendix of this study.

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6.3 Modes of Analysis All interviews were recorded, transcribed, and translated to English from French or Arabic. Interviews were classified based on the role and title of the participant. This allowed for a standardized way to compartmentalize data points and perceptions of VSBP components, implementation strategies, and the individual participant’s role as an actor or recipient of the program.

Data was further organized as : 1. Interviews; 2. Primary Data, such as official reports from the Kingdom of Morocco; and 3. Secondary Data, which includes documents and evaluation reports from external organizations such as USAID or the World Bank. Where necessary, documents were translated to English from French or Arabic.

6.3.1 Analysis Content of Interviews Personal Interviews provided a content critical to the advancement of this study.

Interviews with previous slum residents delved into slum policies in Marrakech from the 1980s to present day. Though limited, the interview with previous slum residents delved into slum policies and programs in Marrakech from the 1980s to present day.

Questions ranged from evaluating how slum residents were compensated for relocation, what types of approaches were common (i.e. in-situ upgrading, partially serviced plots, full rehousing into designated social housing units). These interviews offered insight to the approaches taken by the state to curb the proliferation of slum settlements.

Conversation with participants included land expropriation tactics, modes of calculation of monetary compensation for relocation, and common illegal tactics of slum residents to benefit from compensation without adherence to relocation or anti-slum regulations.

The interview analysis largely involved categorizing and comparing the following components across interview results: - Content of interview - Principle agents identified by participant - Structure and Sequence of interview (how the story was told by the participant) - Functions (what purposes did the story serve for the participant) - Context (in what place of setting is the story narrated)

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Interviews with Al-Omrane expressed the multi-purpose use of new towns like Tamansourt, nearly 20km north of Marrakech, as social housing units for the relocation of slum residents as well as high-end real estate property available for investment.

Furthermore, this interview detailed some of the challenges and risks absorbed by Al-Omrane’s consolidated role in implementing VSB objectives along with its role as a semi-private commercial housing agency.

Interviews with the representatives from the Ministry of Housing, Urbanism and City issues provided details on what led to the creation of the VSB program and what the program is currently comprised of. This set of interviews details the (1) the sociopolitical provocations and international incentives to discourage slum proliferation; (2) taxation policies to fund social housing programs; (3) microfinance institutions and programs that included low-income residents; (4) establishment of loan repayment guarantee programs to incentivize loan distribution to low-income households; (5) role of parastatal Al-Omrane in implementing VSB goals; and (6) current funding and operational mechanisms of the VSB program.

The interviews included inquiries regarding resident-participation, challenges and resident resistance to relocation, and the level of collaboration between local and regional governments as well as with NGOs and CSOs. Additionally the interviews included detailed inquiries of the state of Morocco prior the VSB program, including social housing programs or social institutions that were in place prior to the conception of VSB. The funding mechanisms of the VSB program and existing partnerships with state-owned and private development organizations were also discussed. Demographic data, VSB progress updates, funding summaries, and any available documents relevant to the VSB Program were also requested. All documents collected during the interviews as well as the recordings of the interviews themselves were transcribed into text and translated into English from French or Arabic. Interview guides and manuscripts are made available in the appendix of this report.

6.3.2 Analysis of Official Documents [Primary Data] Data and content collected for this study can be grouped into three compartments to facilitate understanding; Commercial Data, Official Reports, and Personal Interviews.

All reports and documents within this category of data collection were translated into English from French or Arabic.

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Commercial data includes all available documents describing Al-Omrane’s commercial development projects. This includes high-rise apartment units and neighborhoods such as Temara and Tamansourt. These documents were mainly obtained through AlOmrane’s public domain, such as their website and informational pamphlets, catering to large-scale investors and homebuyers. These documents advertise Al-Omrane’s housing schemes in Morocco.

Official Reports include (1) manuals documenting the objectives, operators, and implementation procedures of the VSB program; (2) guides that explicitly define the roles and responsibilities of implementing actors of the VSB program; (3) documents tracking the status of slum eradication procedures in Marrakech, in accordance with VSB guidelines; and (4) summaries of costs of the program and funding mechanisms concerning the implementation of VSB objectives.

Analyzing text and documents was a formative component of this study. Close analysis of textual data reveals the subtleties and easily neglected facets relevant to the object of study (Silverman, 2006). Moreover, text documents show what participants are actually doing in the world without being dependent on questions prompted by researchers. It is tempting however, similar to treating interview responses as true or false depictions of inner ‘experience’, text items are scanned in terms of their correspondence to ‘reality’ (Silverman, 2006). To avoid this common trap, the content analysis methods required set categories and themes to compartmentalize and examine data. More specifically, this involved a categorization scheme that clearly defined principal agents, structure and sequencing of events, and financing systems of the VSBP.

6.3.3 Analysis of Official Reports and Evaluations [Secondary Data] This analysis component of the study focused on existing reports, evaluations, and studies conducted by bilateral organizations to document the effectiveness of Morocco’s VSBP. Where primary data presented textual content created and facilitated under the Kingdom of Morocco, secondary data provides a perspective less inclined to promote a partial view of the region’s VSB efforts. The analysis method for secondary data mirrored that of primary data and was used to further validate and reinforce the claims made by primary text.

While most reports and documents within this category of data collection were in English, a limited number of French reports required translation into English.

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6.4 Limitations Understanding that this research is part of a longer and more extensive study, it is valuable to identify limitations that will guide future efforts. The main limitations of this study rest in restricted availability and access to official documents reporting on the VSBP. While many documents were recovered through the Ministry of Housing and Urbanism and City Issues, several reports were explicitly being withheld to prevent any potentially negative feedback or publications regarding the Kingdom of Morocco’s efforts to eradicate substandard housing. Additionally, data regarding Al-Omrane’s current projects was released with much reservation and restriction. Many reports were partially printed, withholding critical data under the stance that it is confidential information.

As evidenced by the format of the interview—a structured, fast-paced, to the point exchange— there was little opportunity to probe and ask for clarification. The fact that many of the interviews were conducted in Arabic, requiring a translator, added time to the already limited interview time-frames and created opportunities for details lost in translation.

Engaging with slum residents was a critical to the fulfillment of this study. However, local restrictions placed on (1) facilitating personal interviews with slum residents and (2) visiting sites of informal dwellings presented challenges to the potential rigor of this study. Adding opportunities for dialogue with slum dwellers—such as focus groups— would have added a unique component to understanding and evaluating the effectiveness of the VSBP, this study performs this evaluation given limited insight into slum dweller perspectives.

12. “Sunrise in the Medina“ Marrakech Medina [Ibrahim, 2015]

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Chapter 07

VILLES SANS BIDONVILLE PROGRAM

7.1 Overview King Mohammed VI launched the Villes Sans bidonvilles Programme (VSB), not to be confused with the Cities Alliance slogan “Cities without Slums” (Cities Alliance, 2012) in 2004 as part of a larger government strategy to address both supply and demand sides of the housing sector. The VSB program aimed to make cities free of slums and to improve the living conditions of 1.75 million inhabitants in 85 cities by 2012. Placed in the broader international context of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, aiming to improve living conditions of at least 100 million slum inhabitants by 2015, (Navez-Bouchanine, 2002). Due to unforeseen obstacles in VSBP implementation, the program was extended through the year 2016. In Morocco, as of 2015, over 229,949 households are identified as exhibiting improved living conditions, nearly 146,044 of the country’s targeted slum settlements await attention. Over 74,199 housing units have been completed and/or are under development and 71,845 units remain tangled in the web of administrative bureaucracy (Al-Omrane, 2015).

The VSBP is celebrated for being the first nationwide program to approach informal settlements within a much broader urban perspective. Falling under the auspices of the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Habitat and Urban Planning (MHU), seeks to upgrade all slums in Morocco and prioritize the relocation of their inhabitants (Le Tellier, 2009). The ANHI and other local public housing agencies have been merged into a financially autonomous, parastatal organization ‘Al-Omrane Group’. Working closely with the private sector, this agency is responsible for the coordination of more than eighty percent of the slum-upgrading projects and is a core component of this research study.

Several facets of the VSBP distinguish it from the former initiatives discussed in the previous chapter. First, the strategic engagement of semi-private and state actors has implied a unique political reorganization of the housing policies. This is largely by facilitating the entrance of governmental actors into slum settlements and paving the way for relocation. The Social accompaniment of the program, which grew out of debates on the social impact of slum clearance is a specific methodology designed to accompany the slum dweller through the process of moving to their new housing (Navez-Bouchanine, 2002b). This social component of the VSBP mediates between the technical operator and the local population. Finally, the program developed new mechanisms to increase the slum dweller’s access to financial institutions, improve her solvency and facilitate the purchase of a new housing unit (Bogaert, 2011). The way that the program is designed, the slum dwellers still bear most of the expenses for their own relocation.

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The establishment of the FOGARIM fund in 2004, permits populations with modest or volatile income to obtain a bank loan thanks to a government guarantee on maximum amount of 200,000 Dirham. The FOGARIM, while not limited to slum dwellers, created an enabling-framework creating a pathway to housing access.

With the ultimate goal of the VSBP being the eradication of informal settlements and the relocation of their population, virtually every household has the right to housing under this program. In this chapter, we focus on the ways that this ambitious goal was designed to be met.

7.2 Main Objectives and Components of Program The VSB program is based on four fundamental principles: 1. Formalizing slum dweller’s access to financial opportunity (i.e. loans, microcredit, etc); 2. Introducing city contracts to govern VSB implementation at the central, regional, and local level and promote an inclusive approach to decision-making; 3. Instating the public and private sector nexus as a core component the VSB program; 4. (4) Expanding affordable housing development, aiming to produce 100,000 social housing units and serviced land plots annually.

The program is recognized for its efforts to include a wide range of stakeholders to achieve its objectives (Le Tellier, 2009). During the early years of the program, it was clear the VSB program’s initial concept of cost recovery was based on physical solutions—whether resettlement into apartments or relocation onto serviced plots— would be unaffordable to a substantial percentage of its beneficiaries. This discovery urged the creation of new measures to encourage banks and other financial institutions to lend to the program’s target group (i.e slum dwellers, recipients of volatile incomes, and other low-income groups). These measures largely included the development of microfinance systems and loan-guarantee programs which enabled largely marginalized populations to receive access to housing.

The management of the program is based on the concept of collaboration between central, regional, and local government, public and private developers, and the inhabitants of the slums themselves - though there are critiques of the resident participation component of the program.

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The main components of the VSB program include: (1) in-situ upgrading; (2) provision of housing units in locations other than the settlements; (3) redevelopment and provision of serviced plots; and (4) provision of partially serviced plots (personal interview, 2015).

The decision regarding the programs adoption depends on the suitability of the land (in the case of in-situ upgrading), the availability of serviced land, resident incomes and other factors. The planning is undertaken by the local government in collaboration with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning, the communities concerned and other state agencies. The results of the planning process are embodied in a local and state government contract.

In-situ upgrading of existing settlements. It consists of improving the infrastructure while allowing the residents to remain on their plot. This method includes services offered in situ (water, sanitation, electricity, and roads) and is perceived as the least disruptive and the most beneficial component, and more commonly applied to areas that are older and more populated. As of 2010, about 29 percent of participating slum residents benefit from this service. (Baverel, 2008).

Provision of housing units. This involves the demolition of the existing settlement and relocating the residents into new apartment units assigned to the former inhabitants, typically in 4-5 story apartment units. These apartments cost about USD $25,000, but with the provision of several subsidies, the majority only pay about USD $6,875 (Baverel, 2008). Currently, about 21 percent of the residents of slums (some 45,000 households) benefit from this program. The capital cost of the units is limited to USD 25,000, and purchasers must make a down-payment of approximately USD $3,750 (Baverel, 2008).

The government’s FOGARIM guarantee program provides a 70 percent guarantee to banks for loans up to USD $25,000 offered to low-income individuals for the purchase of these subsidized apartments. Borrowers typically borrow the USD $3,750 from a Microfinance Institution to make an advance booking of the unit, and once the loan is approved from the bank under the FOGARIM guarantee, they pay back the MFI.

Redevelopment and provision of fully serviced plots. As of 2010, this component of the VSB program applied nearly to 35 percent of participating households (World Bank, 2010). It involves the gradual redevelopment of the whole site into regulated and surveyed plots, by resettling families onto nearby land, followed by demolition of their houses and redevelopment of that portion. In this way, the settlement is totally redeveloped over a period of several years. As densities are reduced in the redevelopment process, the total amount of land occupied is considerably larger than that occupied by the original settlement, and also typically includes larger plots sold at market rate to cross-subsidize the poor (who typically get smaller plots).

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Under this system, the new plots are offered virtually free to households being resettled/ upgraded, but the occupants must build their own houses. The developer provides standard plans for a 3-story house which the slum dweller is expected to adhere to: the bottom floor is for commercial use, and the middle and top floors are for residential use. It is important to note that the VSBP expects the slum dweller to bear most of the expenses for their relocation, which is where the creation of financial assistance programs, discussed later in the chapter, come into play.

Provision of partially serviced plots. This sites and service model involves the provision of surveyed plots with minimum services and at a low cost, on which families can build new houses.

As of 2010, the provision of partially serviced plots reached approximately 15 percent of the participating residents. The same considerations (as for fully serviced plots land) apply to the new sites, except that water and sanitation is not provided and building controls are typically not strict (USAID, 2008). It is, therefore, possible to build at lower development standards, and easier for low-income populations to build at a low-cost.

Typically, a single housing solution or a combination of two of them is assigned to a whole slum or sections of a slum. The solution chosen is chosen on a case-by-case basis, dependent largely on land and on technical and social considerations unique to each city and slum (Baverel, 2008).

Criterion is not always specific however, and it is often a challenge to understand which slum upgrading method is selected. Though this decision should be based on the consensus of all stakeholders including the slum communities, this is usually not the case. In some instances, the possibility of implementing a specific upgrading method might be questioned due to a lack of feasibility study or household survey, etc.

Social Accompaniment Program Urban integration and social accompaniment are central to the approach adopted by the VSBP. Due to the social complexity of relocation projects and the reluctance of inhabitants to cooperate, the Accompagnment Social (AS) program is designed to accompany slum dwellers through the process of moving to their new housing units and neighborhoods (Bogaert, 2011).

Though there are three main social operators overseeing AS projects —the Social Development Agency (ADS), NGOs and private consultants—AS is carried out by cellules d’accompagnement sociale (CAS). The CAS are teams of 3-5 persons that are set up in the bidonville (Toutain, 2009a).

They guarantee the “proximity” of the public authorities and mediate between the population and the public operator (Toutain, 2008: 27). Officially, their job includes four different steps (Le Tellier, 2009b). The first step is the promotion and communication of the project. This means that the inhabitants have to be informed and sensibilized through, for example, the organization of several workshops which assemble the local authorities, the beneficiaries and the neighborhood associations.

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The second step is the administrative component. Households are assisted in all the different administrative stages of the transfer, specifically in the setting up and the following up of the allocation of a plot (recasement) or an apartment (relogement).

In the process, the slum dwellers are assisted with all the necessary documents (e.g. property titles, etc.) The third step is the social intermediation with and between the different households. Sometimes conflicts arise or inhabitants have specific requests.

Normally, the assumption is that every barrack counts for one household and that the inhabitants of that barrack have the right to a plot or state-subsidized apartment (in some cases two). Finally, the fourth step is giving assistance in finding the appropriate financial solutions for every household (i.e. facilitating their access to credit and creditinstitutions) so they can finance their part of the transfer. Finally, AS also involves further social and economic accompaniment (i.e. the human development dimension) once the people are transferred to their new site.

Although the social support process was originally developed to assist households during the transfer and self-construction phase, it evolved to include slum dwellers during all phases of implementation of the operation to more suitably meet their expectations. The Accompagnement Social program remains loosely defined and open to a variety of interpretations and objectives ranging from administrative support to populations to ensure project success to empowerment of slum residents (Arandel, 2013). Unlike other components of the VSBP guidelines, the social support efforts are largely contingent on the local social operators and the methods they choose to use. For example, the initiators of AS decide upon whom to include and exclude, they make up the agenda and most importantly they determine the eventual objective(s) of participatory development, which is in most cases resettlement (Bogaert, 2011b). In the case of Casablanca for example, social support projects adopted a unique dimention because of the sensitivity of the context of intervention. Largely, efforts throughout the region include workshops that help develop a sense of confidence among the population and assist in transferring agency and ownership of the operations.

7.3 Key Actors The VSB program is supervised by a central committee chaired by the Prime Minister, supported by regional coordinating committees and provincial implementation committees. A special unit has been established by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning (MHU) and the Directorate of Social Housing and Land Development (DHSAF) to manage the program. The main actors in the delivery of housing for lower income groups and of slum upgrading are as follows:

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Government The Ministry responsible for the VSB program is the MHU, which also manages an offbudget subsidy fund, the Social Housing Fund (FSH), a fund which is used to subsidize the cost of social housing units (typically in 4-5 story apartment blocks) which are provided for former residents of slums subject to resettlement. The FSH obtains its revenue from a 10 percent tax on cement. The government has also established a central guarantee—the FOGARIM—which is used to guarantee 70 percent of each bank mortgage loan to low-income individuals with irregular incomes who would normally not be eligible for these loans (Baverel, 2008). Note that the FOGARIM program is not limited to slum households since the overall objective is to reach those people who do not constitute the normal clientele for the financial institutions (Bogeart, 2011).

Donors International donors have provided substantial funds to the VSB, including about USD $90 million from the European Investment Bank for off-site infrastructure and VSB operations, and USD $65 million from the French Development Agency (AFD) to the government’s parastatal developer, Holding Al Omrane. The European Union has also made a grant of USD $117 million for social infrastructure development relevant to the program.

Local Government All local governments are required to prepare comprehensive plans for the elimination of slums in their jurisdiction. They are also expected to provide sites free of charge to the developers of new social housing units. Sometimes central government land or land acquired from private owners is also used.

Banks The state-backed guarantee program, FOGARIM, provides a 70% coverage guarantee of the principal and interest on bank housing loans for low and irregular-income households. (Bavarel, 2008). The FOGARIM program is intended to create an enabling framework for financial institutions to extend loans to a traditionally excluded target segment. As mentioned earlier, the program is not limited to slum households and intends to enable access to financial institutions for populations that do not already dominate their clientele. Commercial banks, such as Morocco’s prominent Banque Populaire, are seen to play an increasing role in loan distribution.

Fiscal incentives benefitting private sector developers have emerged as a way to encourage developer’s participation in the social housing market.

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Developers who commit to constructing 2,500 social housing units in five years are entirely exonerated from taxation. They are also eligible to bid for public land, which is frequently partially serviced. The semi-private, parastatal, Holding Al-Omrane, acts as the developer for many of the slum upgrading projects, and undertakes the construction of new housing and even new towns.

Developers Developers are required to service the land given to them by the government and construct the apartments. As long as the apartments cost less than USD $25,000, they are eligible under the guidelines of the VSB program, and applicants may receive (among other subsidies) a purchase subsidy capped at 30 percent of the total cost (USAID, 2008) . Developers compete fiercely within this market, resulting in rising standards of quality and declining development costs. Private developers therefore, have greater incentives new housing investment rather than upgrading.

Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) In 2005, the government permitted MFIs to lend for housing. These loans are mainly used for incremental house construction or improvement, or for down payments required to reserve a subsidized apartment. While micro-credit has been on the rise since the end of the 1990s, and played various roles in VSBP projects, the success of microcredit in Morocco is still limited and these financial mechanisms are often too expensive for the poorest within the target population (Bogeart, 2011).

7.4 Semi-Private-State Nexus Morocco’s approach to slum eradication is heavily dependent on the involvement of Holding Al-Omrane Group, a state owned enterprise designed to partially service the state as a premier provider of development and social housing units in accordance with the guidelines of the VSB program. The parastatal enterprise was established in 2004 after the merger of the National Shelter Upgrading Agency (ANHI), National Society of Equipment and Construction (SNEC), and Atttacharouk Company—a Private Development Corporation. These agencies and the seven Regional Institutions of Planning and Construction (ERAC) were transformed into limited companies and integrated into the new entity that forms what we know today as Al-Omrane.

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7.4.1 The Role of Al-Omrane Specifically, Al-Omrane’s goal was to eliminate slums in 83 cities and urban centers from 2004 to 2012. The VSB program has since been extended through the year 2016 and thus, the responsibilities of Al-Omrane have continued to grow. The program is placed under the auspices of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning and operates under four main objectives: ❏ ❏ ❏ ❏

Producing social housing units; Rehousing slum dwellers; Constructing of housing in the southern provinces; Developing new satellite towns

In the allocation of housing units, priority is given to the most disadvantaged populations and succeeded in giving the poor property titles, which in turn allow for better access to credit and business opportunities. In alignment with the guidelines and goals of the VSB program, Al-Omrane’s interventions have been undertaken principally through the (i) relocation of slum households on equipped land parcels for the auto-construction of their houses; (ii) re-housing via access to low-cost housing units, intended in priority for vulnerable populations; and (iii) and in situ upgrading. The Al-Omrane group participated in the acquisition of land, technical aspects of operations, collection of beneficiary’s contributions, preparation of sale contracts and delivery of individual property titles.

Through these efforts, Al-Omrane has rehoused families from makeshift dwellings, upgraded underserviced neighborhoods, regularized land tenure in informal settlements and developed new towns—including Tamansourt, about 10 miles north of Marrakech— with a significant portion of land dedicated to affordable housing. (OECD, 2013).

Al-Omrane was created with the intent to move increasingly to land servicing and to disengage from the construction of social housing, in which the private sector is expected to get more involved. Contractors and private developers are called upon to increase their role in the production of social housing, and in particular to build apartment blocks in the context of the VSB program. The government, via Al-Omrane, is ready to transfer to them urbanized land below market value, on condition that the subsidy is transferred to the buyers in the form of below-market sale prices of the housing units to make them affordable. (Un-Habitat, 2010).

7.4.2 Funding Mechanisms In order to realize its objectives, the program has mobilized investments up to USD $3 billion, including a state subsidy of USD $1.2 billion obtained through the general budget and the Fund for Social Housing (FSH).

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The remainder of the funds came from contributions from beneficiary households, the Al-Omrane group, municipalities, private land owners, and international donors (UnHabitat, 2010).

Given the state’s strong commitment to affordable housing and infrastructure development through the VSB program, public funding presents a substantial component of the program’s financial sustenance. As of 2012, nearly $4 billion USD is estimated to be derived from state subsidy. The Social Housing Fund, together with the state budget, is a core financial contributor through the collection of a special tax on cement ($0.01USD per kilogram of cement). According to the Ministry of Housing, FSH resources have exceeded $200 million USD with the rapid growth in cement production in recent years (Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning, 2015).

The role of international donors including the World Bank, European Union, African Development Bank, and USAID, mostly through concessionary loans or grants, exists either through the general state budget (such as the European Union grant) or through the parastatal housing company Al-Omrane. The European Investment Bank (EIB) approved a loan of EUR 71 million to Al-Omrane for the construction of off-site infrastructure for its land development and VSB operations at the start of the VSB program in 2004. Similarly, the French Development Agency approved a EUR 50 million loan to Al-Omrane for the implementation of slum up-grading operations in 2004 (UnHabitat, 2010). Programs like the National Human Development Initiative (INDH), funded by a USD $100 million loan from the World Bank, is another example of donor support engaging the objectives of the VSB. The unique structure of a parastatal enterprise like Al-Omrane permits it to leverage its financial foothold within both the state and private sector. The company is able to crosssubsidize its activities—from margins made on the sale of housing units to higherincome households—in order remain profitable while engaging in social projects. The eradication of slums in Morocco is therefore achieved in part through subsidies and in part through the company’s ability to subsidize certain unprofitable activities.

Finally, the VSB program was built on the assumption that slum households would financially contribute to progress the improvement of their housing conditions. Since the inception of the program however, there has been a wide disparity of income levels between households living in slums, limiting the capacity of contribution to slum upgrading initiatives.

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7.4.3 New Town Development in Marrakech As a part of Holding Al-Omrane’s parastatal role, new town development aims to contribute to the objectives of the VSB program. The vision for these new cities, such as ‘New Town Tamansourt’ about 10 miles north of Marrakech, is to become real urban centers that will include all the components necessary to create healthy cities. Capital investments in transportation infrastructure, health and education services, and the creation of employment centers in addition to major housing developments are all part of the program. The principal intent for these development however, is to diversify the housing stock in anticipation for future urban growth while creating sustainable environments to meet the current housing demands. The housing scheme ranges from villas to buildings and neighborhoods modelled after Moorish, Kasbah architecture.

When the plans for Tamansourt were first publicized, over 5,000 families residing in insalubrious housing of Marrakech were to be relocated to the new town. Though the housing schemes are now in service, it remains unclear whether portions of the housing units within the new town are social housing units priced for a low-income or relocated slum dweller. The towns marketing strategies seem to cater to a foreign, high-income resident capable of long-term investment within the new town.

Local experts claim that lack of incentive to rent or invest in Tamansourt have left the town more or less like a “gigantic urban center of unoccupied, parked homes” since it has been opened to the public. (Benchrif, 2013). Some of the housing units come fully furnished and are closed most of the year, rented only to the rare tourists willing to pay higher than the hotel rates for the extra space, comfort and privacy. These owners have converted these apartments into a “touristic residence” (Benchrif, 2013), another package of fiscal incentives from the Moroccan state to encourage tourism, which in the case of lack of potential buyers, makes renting by the day a lot more attractive than either lowering the selling price or long term rentals. In practice, this acts to lower the supply of housing units available for sale and rent.

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TABLE 01

TABLE 02

TABLE 03

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TABLE 04

TABLE 05

13. “Informal Settlements in Tangier“ Tanger, Morocco [Ibrahim, 2015]

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TABLE 06

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Chapter 08

DISCUSSION

8.1 Areas of Improvement As of 2013, the Kingdom of Morocco has declared 54 cities and urban towns ‘Slum Free’. The VSB program’s confrontation with Morocco’s informal settlements unapologetically perceives the urban poor as a threat to the security and progression of the country instead of an integral component of its development. This study has evaluated the components of the VSBP through the lens of its financial mechanisms and implementation strategies in relation to the region’s rapid socio-political shifts. While the program is unique in being the first nationwide slum program trying to manage informal settlements within a much broader urban perspective—as opposed to the more directed and isolated operations of the past (Bogaert, 2011b) — there are components of the VSBP that require further attention and careful re-evaluation for future initiatives that may use the program as a how-to manual.

This chapter, in highlighting the VSBP’s key areas of improvement, recognizes that the program was not yet completed at the time field research was conducted. Nonetheless, this study references over ten years of data collected by the Kingdom of Morocco as well as the evaluations of external organizations such as the World Bank and private development groups. This chapter discusses the framework of the VSBP under a neoliberal rational that (1) objectifies the informal market as an opportunity to expand the broad reach of capitalist economies, (2) approaches informal settlements as a threat to the country’s modern global image, security and economic stability and (3) masks the expansion of state control in the cities of Morocco.

My field work in Marrakech reinforces the argument that the Kingdom of Morocco is preoccupied, even mesmerized, by the physical appearances of modernity. Moreover, it looks to Western cities or to dazzling Dubai, Singapore, and Shanghai for inspiration and emulation. Where in earlier years, the region may have looked at the ordered regimentation of socialist cityscapes as ideal models; today all faith rests in the wonders of the corporate real estate sector—both domestic and international—to build and transform the Marrakech (Huda, 2014). The needs of a city’s common people may receive grudging attention in government pronouncements, but the messy, chaotic and complicated reality of urban informality is the antithesis of the kinds of urban order that should prevail in a “modern city”.

The region’s urban experts like Dr. Koenraad Bogaert argue that the efforts to transplant western-aesthetic in the Moroccan city using programs like the VSBP at the forefront fits perfectly within a neoliberal rational.

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As a consequence, programs like VSBP “incorporate exploitative class relations that fundamentally redefine social policy in Morocco according to free market requirements Bogaert, 2011b). These should therefore be viewed rather as new frontiers of capital accumulation, than as real sustainable solutions to the pressing socio-economic problems of Morocco (Roy, 2010). As a result, these kind of programs are more likely to reproduce social inequality instead of alleviating poverty and combating the proliferation of informal settlements. Moreover, the specific neoliberal rationality behind a program such as VSBP enables us to consider the broader social implications of slum eradication. The expansion of capitalism in Morocco went hand in hand with the desire to control potentially “dangerous classes” and instate a form of state-control within the informal market (Bayat, 2000). The VSBPs unapologetic stance to securitizing the citizen from the slum dweller presents severe social injustices and unequal treatment inherent in the proceedings of the program.

Despite the inclusion of a social component that facilitates healthy transition from informal to formal households the AS has left many needs unmet. While there are several cases where the program claims to prioritize the role of the bidonville inhabitant—as well as local government bodies—in the implementation and design of the program, inclusive measures have not been taken as originally intended by the VSBP guidelines. The remainder of this chapter addresses these areas of improvement in more exhaustive detail.

8.1.1 Entrenchment of State Power According to the Moroccan sociologist Abderrahmane Rachik, the VSBP can be compared with the urban restructurings after the 1981 riots to the extent that security and control are still dominant strategic objectives (Bogaert, 2011). Despite this apparent continuity of approach however, the methods used to achieve these objectives have changed. The new methods of social engineering facilitated the entrance of governmental agency into the slums and eventually paved the way for the eradication of the slums and the resettlement of its populations (Bogaert, 2011b). Where in the past, the bidonvilles had always been “impenetrable spaces for various governmental actors; the paths that divide the overload of barracks are very narrow, often unpaved, and therefore inaccessible to fire engines, police cars, ambulances or army vehicles” (Ibid, 2011b). The crisscross of aisles and barracks make the inhabitants almost invisible.

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Promoted as a fight against poverty and sub-standard housing, the specific security objectives of the VSBP were discretely embedded in its attempts to manage informal settlements through new modalities of state intervention. The program gives the authorities the legitimacy to finalize the deconstruction of these impenetrable and ungovernable spaces. The daily presence of the CAS-teams ensures the embeddedness of governmental structures in the slums and facilitates the bureaucratic control over these populations. The CAS-teams inventory the population, explain people how the resettlement project will proceed, inform them of their next steps and assist the population in all the necessary administrative procedures. In other words, the CAS liberate the path for the eventual destruction of the slum-space. Before people are allowed to move to their new apartment their former barracks have to be destroyed in order to avoid that these will be occupied by newcomers again. It is clear that “poverty was an entry point for the state to enhance its bureaucratic control” (Bogaert, 2011b).

James Ferguson correctly observes that “although “development” discourse tends to see the provision of “services” as the purpose of government, it is clear that the question of power cannot be written off quite so easily” (Ferguson, 2006: 271). “Government services”, he argues, “are never simply services” (Ibid, 2006).

A final important insight, delivered by Ferguson, is that the expansion of certain forms of “state power” does not necessarily mean that “the state” as such has more power (Ibid, 2006). The expansion of state-control does not necessarily imply that the Moroccan state has managed to increase its control over the slum population by integrating them in some kind of totalizing panoptic control project. People do resist resettlement (Bogaert, 2011b). The ordinary still quietly encroaches upon the ruling classes and the underlying root causes for political instability are still not taken away (Bayat, 2000; 2002). The problem of urban poverty will not be solved by the VSBP, it will just be moved around and away from the city-center. The question will then be how the management of future risks will continue to look like in the future? Will there be other outbursts of violence that threaten political stability in Morocco? Will this affect the position of ruling elites? Will it affect the capacity of state institutions to control the population or certain segments of that population? Consequently, although schemes such as the VSBP may have provided entry points to expand state control and state presence, this does not necessarily mean that it will also be effective (Bogaert, 2011b). As James Ferguson (2006: 282) has pointed out in his own work on Lesotho where he observed expanded bureaucratic state control as an effect of development projects:

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“The expansion of bureaucratic state power then, does not necessarily mean that “the masses” can be centrally coordinated or ordered around any more efficiently; it only means that more power relations are referred through state channels – most immediately, that more people must stand in line and await rubber stamps to get what they want. What is expanded is not the magnitude of the capabilities of “the state,” but the extent and reach of a particular kind of exercise of power” (Ibid, 2006).

In the case of Morocco, I argue that a program such as the VSBP has certainly expanded bureaucratic control in many ways, but I doubt whether it has enhanced the control— from a security perspective—over the slum population in a qualitative way. The root cause for political instability, the country’s rampant socioeconomic inequality, has just been displaced.

8.1.2 Social Impact The social effect of the VSBP is rather ambiguous. Despite, the well-known deficiencies in some housing projects, one cannot deny that the physical living conditions of most people who were resettled has improved significantly. Aesthetically, one could argue that the new social housing projects are an improvement for the city’s image compared to the chaotic and miserable image of bidonvilles. “Regular access to water, electricity and the construction of sewage systems has obviously improved the conditions of hygiene and security. Yet, the overly positive picture of the social impact of the VSBP, as it is often presented by state-officials and official documents, should be nuanced (Bogaert, 201b).” In the end, the goal is simply to eradicate the slums and relocate the slum-population. The new housing blocks are carefully parceled to fit as many people as possible. The apartments are often too small for the larger families (Personal Interview, 2015). People are often relocated far from their original residence and detached from their original living environments (Personal Interview, 2015).

These proceedings foster greater social and economic implications. First of all, many of the inhabitants are dependent on their original living place for small-scale trade activities and employment within the informal market. The new estates are often far less dynamic and economically interesting. Moreover, the presence of a souk in the center of the city offers several opportunities to inhabitants which they miss out on once they are relocated. Secondly, moving brings forth new costs which pressure the already modest family budgets. People have to pay new taxes, water, electricity and public transport (if available). As such, the transfer often comes with a decline in revenues and an increase in expenses. As a result, it is not uncommon that families are compelled to cut expenses in for example the education of their children (Bogaert, 2011b).

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Third, those people who are beneficiaries in an operation of recasement often have to find a transit home to overlap the time between the obligatory destruction of their barrack and the construction of their new apartment (Le Tellier, 2009a). These extra costs are often too much to bare which often causes people to re-sell their plot and find a refuge in another bidonville or an informal neighborhood.

Fourth, the transfer often implies the breaking up of social networks that existed in the bidonvilles before resettlement (Iraki, 2006b). Slum dwellers usually don’t want to be displaced: it disrupts existing commercial and social networks, raises housing costs, lengthens commuting times, and more (Navez-Bouchanine, 2002c; Le Tellier, 2009a). Finally, aesthetically, socially and geographically there are also some additional considerations to be made. Extended informal conversation during personal interviews Brought attention to a reoccurring urban planning fiasco; the lack of public spaces in social housing neighborhood units. “Everything has been built over with apartments, there is no space provided for green spaces, parks, trees, for playgrounds, youth centers and other places where people can meet each other” (Personal Interviews, 2015). Many of these new social housing projects and resettling operations transform the urban periphery into a monotonous mass of low-cost apartments. The case of the New town Tamansourt is a classic example of the inadequate adaptation of the needs of slum dwellers to meet the demand and financial capacity of households. Many of the units in this satellite town remain unsold. These unsold units, along with several vacant social housing units across the country dedicatedly built for re-housing slum dwellers, despite offering large subsidies have failed to entice buyers and reflect an obvious unease of the slum populations in using formal market mechanisms (Harvey, 2012).

Due to the obvious social complexity of relocation projects and the reluctance of inhabitants to cooperate, social and financial integration programs were developed to support VSBP efforts. In the Moroccan landscape of informal and formal institutions, stated and unstated interests diverge significantly, failing to distinguish and prioritize the needs of slum dwellers from the demands of the state’s objectives. Studies in other regions of the world have shown that “residents involvement in all stages of the slum upgrading process, from resource allocation to service delivery, contribute to more tailored and effective delivery of housing and basic infrastructure” (Pimentel Walker, 2016). Thus, it was only intuitive to include a social component to the VSBP that not only facilitated resident participation, but also mitigated social inequalities within residential communities.

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The Social Accompaniment program—introduced in earlier chapters as a strategic effort to accelerate the pace of social housing and to provide a system to facilitate rapid integration of slum dwellers into new housing schemes—quickly became a mode of mediation between the technical operators and the local population (Bogaert, 2011).

In reality, this meant that the social operator within the AS program had to inform and convince the slum dweller of the benefits of the project, making her willing to cooperate, and assist her through the administrative procedures (Le Tellier, 2009; NavezBouchanine, 2005). “When upgrading programs are discussed with the slum dwellers, the project operator’s task is to sell the concepts and the program to the residents, rather than inviting them to state what they want and what they will be willing to pay for it. This type of top-down approach results in some households being forced into making payments for improvements to their environment for which there is no effective demand.

Participation by the communities in plans for upgrading is still a rarity, and given the system of governance, the people for most part, expect to follow the rules and obey orders.” (Personal interview, 2015) At the beginning of 2009, AS was implemented in twenty-three relocation programs, targeting approximately 50,000 households. Of the three main social operators implementing the AS program—ADS, NGOs, and private consultants—private consultants took on 45 percent of all households in AS programs, but spent only 28 percent of the total amount dedicated to AS. In contrast, ADS spends 60 percent of the total AS budget while it is only responsible for 33 percent of households (Le Tellier, 2009).

Contrary to the underlying premise of the VSBP’s social accompaniment program, communities have not been involved in the primary choices pertaining to their own development, but rather have been asked to adhere to a program that had already been defined for them. Many beneficiaries of resettlement programs, for example, cannot afford to build a formal house. It is not unusual, therefore, for them to enter into a contract either to sell the land when they are legally allowed to do so (after 5 years), or to allow someone else to build and use the house on the condition that they allow the beneficiary family to use the top floor (Personal interview, 2015). As mentioned previously, some of these beneficiaries simply sell the new plot, and move to other areas to squat, perpetuating the cycle of informal domesticity. This provokes a broader dialogue involving the limited reach of the VSBPs financial mechanisms.

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In the way the VSBP is designed, ownership is central to the program. The intention is not only to transfer people to a new living environment, but also to turn these illegal occupants into legal homeowners. However, much of the financial burden rests on the shoulders of the slum dweller and a majority of the population being resettled have very little means to finance this move. Many of the contractual services or relocation programs fail to remedy the inherent structures that encourage of informality. Even the financial mechanisms designed to enable the slum dweller’s access to financial institutions, improve solvency, and facilitate the purchase of new housing, remain limited in effectiveness.

Additionally, for obvious reasons, there is little trust and familiarity between the poor and commercial credit providers. As a consequence, there was an obvious aversion to lending to the urban poor. Therefore, in the wake of the VSBP, new mechanisms were created to solve that problem. One of those mechanisms was the FOGARIM guarantee.

As introduced earlier this guarantee program permits slum dwellers to obtain a bank loan with a government guarantee up to a maximum amount of 200,000 MAD (AlOmrane Report, 2007). With the intention to promote low-cost and social housing, FOGARIM was created specifically for those populations “with modest or irregular revenues”. FOGARIM permits the spread of risk between the commercial credit-institutions and the state in order to break down the metaphorical walls between both commercial banks and slum dwellers. The fund was established in 2004 and guarantees a recovery of 70% of commercially invested capital (World Bank, 2006). In the following five years more than 50,000 loans, worth approximately 7.3 billion MAD, were granted within the framework of FOGARIM. More than 250,000 persons in 147 cities and villages have benefited from this program. FOGARIM is not limited to the population of the bidonville inhabitants alone.

In fact, the number of bidonville households that profited from FOGARIM remains relatively limited (10%) compared to other populations with limited revenues (Bogaert, 2011b).

Nevertheless, their number is on the rise (Toutain, 2009). One of the problems, however, is that instruments like FOGARIM are still little-known among the poorest populations. AS is one of the ways in which the bidonville residents are informed. According to Olivier Toutain, FOGARIM is a very innovative instrument in public housing policies. There is for example no equivalent in the wider MENA-region – albeit there are other kinds of initiatives in Tunisia and Jordan which resemble it (Ibid, 2009). Morocco is for example one of the few countries in the world—if not the only one—where you can obtain such a loan without any proof of a stable income or guarantee of solvability.

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Besides FOGARIM, another innovative financial mechanism was put in place. Since 2004, the Moroccan legislation permitted the involvement of Moroccan microfinance institutions in resettlement and restructuring operations (Le Tellier, 2009b). Since the 1990s, microfinance is a booming business in Morocco, but it was only since the launch of the VSBP that these financial products could also be used for rehabilitation. Yet, compared to FOGARIM, there are obvious limits to micro-credits. First of all, the amount of money you can borrow is never enough to finance a new apartment or a plot (with the subsequent construction). The price of state-subsidized social apartments vary between 140,000 and 200,000 MAD (recently raised up to 290,000) within the framework of VSBP. A state-subsidized plot still costs around 20,000 MAD, and the construction of a unit at least 40,000 MAD (i.e. the absolute basic construction) (Bogaert, 2011b). Consequently, the majority of micro-credits are used for renovations.

Secondly, the interest rate is much higher, around 12% (Ibid, 2011b). As a result, only those people who have a certain creditworthiness qualify for microfinance. The most solvent part of the urban poor have access to these kinds of loans. This is also the case for FOGARIM, where loans are granted to those who are deemed to be able to pay back. As such, the success of these financial mechanisms is still limited and often too expensive for the poorest among the beneficiaries (Le Tellier, 2009).

The development of mechanisms such as FOGARIM and MFIs for housing are crucial elements in what Ananya Roy calls the alliance that lies at the very heart of “poverty capital” (Roy, 2010:31). This alliance brings together those who “control access to the poorest” (e.g. microfinance providers, the CAS teams, even the state, etc.) and those who “control access to capital” (e.g. the commercial banks) (Ibid, 2010). The financial architecture behind poverty capital have to explore and exploit “the new frontier of capital accumulation”, i.e. the inclusion of the urban poor in the urban economy; those people who haven’t been served by financial systems and markets before (Ibid, 2010:53; Elyachar, 2002). The complex but crucial question at hand, according to Roy, is whether poverty capital will ensure the financial inclusion of the poor on fair and just terms, or whether these financial innovations are just new ways to exploit them?

More generally, is the support of the state in the VSBP—via subsidies, tax-cuts and financial guarantees—a way to give the urban excluded a new hope for the future or is state support a rather convenient instrument to privatize benefits (Bogaert, 2011b)? The limited reach of the VSBPs financial mechanisms require re-evaluation of who is—and who should be—at the center of these services and benefits.

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Moreover, administrative rigidities push the social priorities of the program to the back burner. Ill-design of the program and the poor coordination between the various Moroccan administrations, some of which are already plagued with pervasive inefficiency, have presented serious delays in improving access to social housing units. In 2013, there were nearly 120,000 housing units from the lowest segment of 140,000DH ready to be occupied, but unsold. Not because there were not enough buyers, but rather that the administrative process to prove that one was eligible for that market segment was inefficient and complex. Once proved eligible, other steps were required before actually finalizing the acquisition transaction. Several unfortunate participants of this process have expressed their dissatisfaction with the system in place. How can slum dwellers be expected to [willingly] participate in a program that brings administrative chaos that anyone would much rather avoid?

“The potential buyer becomes trapped between the bank, the notary, the court, AlOmrane, the housing ministry and the developer. The latter doesn’t deliver when paid, but rather when the state refunds the value added rebate, which is not validated until the notary registers the transaction in the court. The court takes months to respond, thus beforehand the potential must get social housing paper work from the bank, al Omrane and the housing ministry. These institutions do not coordinate effectively and have a heavy workload.” (Benchrif, 2013). In the meantime the bank starts charging their monthly loan repayments and the poor buyer finds himself in the situation of having to pay a rent for the home he lives in and a rent-equivalent debt for the social apartment he doesn’t own yet, all of this from the already meagre salary.

8.2 Implications of Neoliberal Reform in Marrakech In this study we explored some of the directions and perspectives that enable us to understand political change in Morocco as a process that is, without a doubt, intimately related to the changes and shifts within global capitalism (Zemni and Bogaert, 2006). If we look beyond the specific ideological packaging of social development schemes such as the VSBP, we observe a new political reality that positions the center of gravity of welfare and social development to the private sphere and private actors. Though the role of the state is still important, it has shifted from providing welfare (the developmental state) to creating a good business environment (the neoliberal state) (Bogaert, 2011b). Methods of political intervention that bring all human action into the domain of the market—introduced earlier as poverty capital (Roy, 2010:32)—permits an alignment of the VSBP with Morocco’s political objectives as part of neoliberal class project. As a result, the neoliberal state now works primarily for investors, tourists and the rich while most other people are going to be pushed more and more to the peripheries of the cities, either under state enforcement or by financial necessity.

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According to influential thinkers such as Hernan De Soto or C.K. Prahalad, the poor dispose of an enormous amount of “dead capital” (De Soto, 2001) and there is a “fortune [to be made] at the bottom of the pyramid” (Prahalad, 2004). Consequently, it is not so much the task of development schemes to provide these poor with charity but to give them the tools and help them to develop the entrepreneurial skills they actually already possess. In this perspective, the poor have assets and they are assets (Roy, 2010: 64).

Poor populations of the world are seen as an opportunity; a commercial viable operation (Prahalad, 2004).

The same development logic is found in Morocco’s VSBP today. De Soto’s pleads to give the poor legal land title and property rights— to access wealth and essentially put their assets to work in the capitalist market (Davis, 2006)—aligns with the VSBP turning slum dwellers into legal home-owners. Dr. Bogaert evokes the question “is there not a risk that the VSBP, with its emphasis on the promotion of ownership and resettlement, is actually setting in place the conditions for a future wave of accumulation by dispossession?” (Bogaert, 2011b). First of all, the relocation of the urban poor out of the centers of cities like Marrakech, is already a way to reclaim that center for other, more profitable kinds of urban development - such as luxury hotels and tourism centric development. Secondly, the conversion of illegal slum dwellers into legal home-owners, which seems laudable at first sight, could have detrimental long-term implications, especially if social development programs don’t take into account the wider social dimensions of their living situation. The assets of the poor are not the source of this process of wealth creation, as suggested by De Soto, but the means through which the reorganization and accumulation of wealth is carried out (Ibid, 2011b). The specific strategies to accomplish this are not so much reflecting a free market but rather a political project.

For years, even decades, many slum dwellers in Morocco have lived outside the formal market-economy. Many of them had no property rights, no regular job, no legal water connection, etc. But if the poor were not finding their way to the market, the new methods of social engineering, although still not widely applied, are now helping to bring the market to the poor (Zemni and Bogaert, 2011). If necessary, the establishers of market integration will adapt the products to the capacities of the urban poor (and not necessarily their needs). In May 2015, I had the chance to visit one of these pseudo social housing development in Tamansourt, nearly 13 km north of Marrakech. Some inhabitants were so kind to invite me into their homes. Although I am not trained as an architect, I quickly noticed that the social housing units were constructed at an absolute minimum cost.

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One of the apartments already showed humidity stains and cracks in the walls. The home-owners did the best they could to repair the damage themselves. Despite their own inventiveness, the inhabitants assured me that this was normally the responsibility of the public operator—in this case Al-Omrane—according to the agreements they had reached with them.

In a country where the majority of low-income population still doesn’t have a bank account, concepts like debt and credit are introduced through instruments such as FOGARIM and micro-credits for housing. What will happen when they are no longer to pay their loans?

After all, a new apartment implies a lot of extra costs: property taxes, a legal connection to the electricity and water distribution networks, public transport, etc. This problem hasn’t been addressed properly until now at the political level. Insofar as the bidonville is seen to represent the ruralization of the city, the solution is presented as one of shepherding its inhabitants towards market integration (Bogaert, 2011b). Generally, the idea behind this conception of ‘integration’ is that once people are good customers they will eventually become responsible citizens with a proper job and a proper lifestyle. As such, the market becomes the norm by which good citizenship is measured. It fits within the neoliberal dogma of “helping the poor help themselves”, creating an illusion of self-help (Davis, 2006). The VSBP aims to include the slums into the formal urban space where the state can define, defend and regulate the norms and boundaries for social life. Lamia Zaki has shown that this kind of approach creates new forms of exclusion: “It [transforms the slum dwellers] from citizens to consumers by replacing the notion of absolute (human) rights with that of a right to services”. Consequently, she argues that privatization tends to atomize the notion of right by creating conflicting interests between those who are able to afford market-inclusion and those who are simply too poor and thus remain excluded (Zaki, 2008) This opens up a radically different perspective on the VSBP and similar newly launched slum eradication programs, arguing that the initiative is not just any social program to alleviate poverty and eradicate substandard housing. Instead, it is a particular project that fits perfectly within a neoliberal rationale and, as a result, incorporates exploitative class relations. As a consequence, the VSBP fundamentally redefines social policy in Morocco according to free market requirements and should therefore be viewed more as new frontiers of capital accumulation than as real sustainable solutions to the pressing socioeconomic problems of Morocco (Roy, 2010). These kinds of programs are more likely to reproduce social inequality instead of alleviating poverty. Moreover, the specific neoliberal rationale behind development programs such as the VSBP enable us to reproduce social inequality instead of alleviating poverty.

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Moreover, the specific neoliberal rationale behind development programs such as the VSBP enables us to link these projects with other kinds of projects which at first sight seem to have a completely different purpose and algorithm for implementation.

Perhaps it is believed that the legitimacy of an Arab state like Morocco, as the vanguard or at least the guiding hand of democracy and development, is entwined with its architectural and urban feats. By definition, informal urban processes contravene a host of these feat, and in attempting to maintain the label of a ‘progressive nation’, the Kingdom of Morocco has lost control of its urban politics.

14. “Prayer Time in the Kasbah“ Marrakech, Morocco [Ibrahim, 2015]

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Chapter 09

CONCLUDING REMARKS

While this study identifies several challenges facing Morocco’s slum eradication initiative, the Villes sans Bidonville Program presents fundamental reforms towards harnessing a two-way interaction between the parastatal, private and public sectors in Marrakech. The operations supporting these reforms, and the reforms themselves, particularly the large scale consolidation of firms into one Holding Al-Omrane Group, reinstituted a firm focus on the operations of the program that would have otherwise been fragmented with conflicting regional authorities and opinions. Though it is rightfully argued that such parastatal enterprises service a centralized, top-down approach to planning, the steady inclusion and strategic fiscal incentivization for private developers to enter the social housing market offers a unique platform for sectoral collaboration and innovative development solutions.

The pervasive policies rooted in attempts to ‘secure’ the city from the slum implores the substitution of a moral agenda in the place of a socio-political agenda. This distinction between good and bad – especially within the cultural stigmatization of the slum dweller- presents the urban poverty and social inequality as a class struggle that can only be resolved through the expertise and efficiency of the urban elite. Unfortunately, this considerable flaw neglects the root of poverty to focus on measurable, technical aspects of the slum upgrading will only succeed in moving the social problems out of the city center (Bogaert, 2011).

Ultimately, policies and programs aimed at achieving cities without slums need to treat the target population as a dynamic feature of urban development and active contributors to the policies of the programs. The authoritarian approach which makes no more than token efforts to enlist citizen participation perpetuates an unhealthy cycle of development for which there is no effective demand. (Martin and Mathema, 2008). By empowering slum residents to contribute, the balance of power is shifted in favor of the community (Arandel and Wetterberg, 2012) As the world’s urban population is predicted to almost double by 2050 (Arandel and Wetterberg, 2012), relentless pressure on city land calls for sustainable approaches that satisfy the demands of residents, as well as the state and other powerful interests.

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