The Province of Barcelona helps enhance the political participation of women in Morocco

On Thursday 22 February, officers of the Development Cooperation Unit of the Barcelona Province met with representatives of Barcelona municipal council to present a new project of decentralised cooperation in Morocco under the name “Reinforcing local participative democracy in Morocco” (« Renforcement de la démocratie participative locale au Maroc »).

This initiative, which is led by the Province of Barcelona (Diputació de Barcelona) and the Moroccan Institute of local development (Institut marocain de développement local – IMADEL), offers a common space for sharing experiences and good practices in the area of local participation and gender equality between municipal councils from Barcelona and Marrakech-Safi area.

The project will build up on the new competences of Moroccan local governments in the area of development and participation, expanded in 2015 by the new law on local governments. Its objective is to accompany the creation of a new mechanism of local democracy, the Equal Opportunity Instances, as well as to help provide it with gender perspective policies at local level.

The main activities planned are the training of Moroccan local authorities’ officials and elected representatives and capacity building. The project also envisages the provision of technical support to Moroccan local councils to reinforce the functioning of the Equal Opportunity Instances, and the implementation of two pilot projects in Guéliz and Ben Guerir to enhance the political participation of women and the organisation of two exchange visits between local councils of Morocco and Barcelona.