22 PERSPECTIVES ON BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS | VOL 42 | 2024 loud Kassimi, a representative of the Aït Naamane community in the El Hajeb Province of Morocco, “The land is going, no matter what we do…” (Chaudier, 2023). Given enough time, inaction will lead to privatization. There is an example of government privatization fairly and proactively carried out. In 2016, the Kingdom of Morocco and the US government’s Millenium Challenge Corporation created a public institution, the Millennium Challenge Account-Morocco Agency (MCA-Morocco, n.d.), designed to promote equitable land privatizations for the development of the country. The MCA project has three foci: land governance (creation of a cohesive nationwide land strategy), further sustainable development of industrial zones, and privatization of communal rural land, referred to as the Land Productivity Project. Post-privatization, the project calls for enabling investment in the land, optimal production, and job creation, especially for youth and women. It was created with a $171.2M budget, with about 20% ($32.6M) going to privatization. Unfortunately, that figure is a one-time allotment, and neither government has yet to provide more funding toward the project. By 2019, there had been 4363 privatized lots created, and 3967 allocated, for a total of 19,154 hectares because of the MCA (Ministry of Agriculture, n.d.). In 2023, the program undertook huge privatizations in the Gharb (51,000 hectares privatized) and Al Haouz (16,000 hectares privatized) regions of the country. In these regions, collective land has been split into plots with titles transferred to the individuals residing thereon. This method has been favored, as opposed to traditional land sales, especially by communities throughout the country that have applied to privatize their land (Chaudier, 2023). One must ask if this preference is because communal residents know their land is going to be taken, so they at least want something in return, or if privatization is genuinely preferable to communal land. Given the social and economic obstacles associated with collective land, there is no reason to believe that the preference is not genuine. Another consideration regarding the effectiveness of this form of privatization has to do with ensuring that everyone relying on the land receives their own plot. Of course, there remains the question of which family members will receive title to a given plot; will it be restricted to male heads of households, or will all community members have equitable access to the right of ownership? There is also an interesting reaction from the forces of supply and demand, which end up harming the new property owners, for often as soon as community members gain access to this privatized land, they look to sell it off and move to the city. As more and more landowners sell, the land price naturally decreases. Those who acquire and sell first make the most; as more and more residents acquire land, they sell at the highest obtainable current price, further driving down the selling price. If the community works together, instead of single residents profit maximizing, a more favorable price could possibly be acquired (Chaudier, 2023). Part of the reason for selling is a desire to move to developed urban areas, where there will hopefully be more lucrative employment opportunities. Because so many families are nomadic farmers, and now constrained to privatized lots, this also would influence families to sell and start fresh in urban areas. Reasons aside, this result is favored by the government and could help achieve its second pillar of the MCA, development of industrial zones through a more urbanized workforce. Conclusion Moroccans living on communal land currently struggle with issues ranging from lack of economic opportunity to gender inequality to government bias when it comes to selling off the land held communally. If a private party can prove expropriation is for the public good, there is little a community can do about having their land taken, as has been proven in the past. While privatization certainly does bring opportunity for development and higher equality, Morocco must ensure that it is done fairly and that there is proper communication with the communities benefiting from selling the land. The privatization experiments in the Gharb and Al Haouz regions offer a possible solution, as the government can closely monitor the titling. Adequate government oversight can help verify that everyone who benefits from a piece of communal land receives a privatized share. The MCA project has been very favored by communities and should be continued with regions that apply, although funding may dry up. If this should happen, and many regions not able to participate, the government should dedicate substantial resources to tracking and monitoring the status of communal lands. Illegal infringements should be detected and stopped, and public data about which community owns what territory (along with accurate population counts) should be provided. This surveying and enforcement would be costly but are the only ways to guarantee that community rights are respected and that privatizations that do take place are lawful. The most likely outcome of Morocco’s communal land
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