Morocco depends largely on external financial aid (World Bank, UNDP, IFAD, ABD, GEF, GIZ, EU) to support its socio-economic development and seek to alleviate poverty and combat social exclusion. Despite incoming budgets and programs, the country’s performance remains poor to fulfil human capacities and potential. Rural women living in isolated villages are particularly poorly integrated in Moroccan society. Rural women however, are the gatekeepers of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) linked to natural resource management. They contribute to producing and securing food, manage natural resources, and are able to earn an income through these activities; largely undermined. Using an original interdisciplinary approach of ethnobiology, development studies and geography, the overall goal of the EWTEK project was to identify factors that allow women to gain empowerment, social status through TEK and its integration in income generating activities (IGA), in the initiatives of the Green Morocco Plan (GMP). The analysis of the political framework and strategies of the GMP vs an in-depth ethnographic analysis of the social cultural content of the communities revealed key factors that impeded the development of initiatives at village level. The ethnographic documentation of the women’s traditional knowledge and the transfer of traditional skills to IGA has major implications for women’s social status and socio-economic development. With a Shift on priorities, and focus on a bottom up approach collaborating with the local authorities, this new concept of development can create major impacts. It provides a unique opportunity to:
1. Advance the social recognition of women employed as a labor force in cooperatives, as their traditional knowledge skills are hardly recognized but play a vital part in product development.
2. Advance socio-economic development and traditional knowledge as a tool for participation, enrolment for IGA to trigger the women’s empowerment.
The EWTEK project is auspicious at a time when issues of poverty and socio-economic exclusion persist in the country. It is expected that these results will permeate the policy making realm and influence the Moroccan political agenda for a gender “rural traditional dimension” be integrated to improve the conditions of rural women.
