Morocco, a Noteworthy TC Reform Case Study

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Morocco is well advanced in implementing the European Commission's reform of Technical Cooperation, according to the Delegation of the European Union in the country. But in the specific case of Morocco, more can be done to develop innovative TC and to ensure that operations are more results-oriented.

According to the Delegation of the EU in Morocco, some problems related to Technical Cooperation and highlighted in the Backbone Strategy are not relevant in Morocco, because of the fact that the EU does not any longer use parallel Programme Implementation Unites (PIUs).

As a result, Morocco can be seen as an interesting case in the implementation of the EC's reform of Technical Cooperation, with good potential for capacity building oriented TC.

However, the Backbone Strategy is still relevant and must be implemented in Morocco, according to Mr. Mario Mariani, Head of Operations at the Delegation of the EU in Morocco.

"The Backbone Strategy is and must stay a quality process", said Mr Mariani in a recent video interview for capacity4dev.eu, which you can watch in full below.

One of our challenges remains "to interest our government and civil society partners in being more involved in the implementation of the Backbone Strategy and in working with us in order to ensure that its principles are a success," Mr Mariani explained.

"In our specific context, I think we should open a dialogue with our partners on the types of Technical Cooperation we should be using in our programmes," he went on. "We should also try to implement innovative types of Technical Cooperation. There is a high potential for them, especially in Morocco."

Orientation on results has been flagged by the Delegation as one of the areas for future action for Technical Cooperation in Morocco, where additional efforts remain to be done.

"We should put emphasis also on the evaluation, not only at the end but also during the implementation of Technical Cooperation operations and see and capitalise if this Technical Cooperation has managed to meet the demand and needs formulated by our partners", Mr Mariani said.

"What we need now from the Headquarters", Mauro Mariani concluded, "is stimulation at the practical level: What is being done in other countries? What could we do in our daily work to improve the implementation of the Backbone Strategy in our country?"

The 2009 mapping of Technical Cooperation recently carried out by the Delegation shows that in Morocco, six out of 28 ongoing or in the pipeline TC operations are considered as being "very good" with the majority of the rest identified as "good" according to the five quality criteria set by the Backbone Strategy.

In Morocco, Technical Cooperation is increasingly becoming capacity building oriented with 13 TC operations only targeting capacity building and six others combining capacity building with support to programme implementation.