His Excellency Aziz Mekouar
Ambassador of His Majesty the King of Morocco to the United States of America
Aziz Mekouar became ambassador of the Kingdom of Morocco to the United States on June 19, 2002. Before his current assignment, Ambassador Mekouar served as Moroccan ambassador to Italy, Malta and Albania, and permanent representative to the FAO (United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization) (1999-2002), Portugal (1993-1999), and Angola (1986-1993).
Ambassador Mekouar has also served as first counselor and deputy chief of mission at the Embassy of Morocco in Rome (1977-1985), and permanent representative of Morocco to the International Bureau for Information Technology (1978-1985).
He was elected chairman of the United Nations FAO Council from November 2001 to November 2005.
Ambassador Mekouar has published numerous papers on world economic issues.
He holds a baccalaureate degree from the French Lycée Charles Lepierre in Lisbon, Portugal, and graduated from the HEC Graduate Business School in France in 1974. Born on November 13, 1950 in Fez, Morocco, Ambassador Mekouar is fluent in Arabic, English, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.
During his tenure as ambassador in Washington, Mr. Mekouar has overseen the negotiation and signing of a Free Trade Agreement between Morocco and the United States, and has worked to foster understanding between the American and the Moroccan peoples.
Location: Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.
Event Summary
Ambassador Mekouar on Modern Morocco
“In the Moroccan political system, there is a will and a vision. We just need to have everybody on board to take advantage of it,” Moroccan Ambassador Aziz Mekouar told an audience at the Institute in October.
Mekouar, who has been the Moroccan ambassador to the US since 2002, discussed the ways in which Morocco stands apart from other countries in the region, in terms of history, politics, and democratization.
“Morocco has more than 12 centuries as an independent country,” the ambassador said. “As a state, it goes back to the eighth century.” Mekouar cited the absence of Ottoman influence, a strong Jewish minority, and the country’s unique royal institution as historical reasons for Morocco’s “growing up in a different way” than the other countries in North Africa.
He discussed Morocco’s process of democratization, stressing that Morocco is the only country in the region never to have a one-party system. In 2002 and 2007, the country had elections, which were deemed “completely fair and transparent” by international standards.
Morocco is a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament. Mekouar believes that the current king, Mohammed VI, is more popular than the elected officials in the country. The king is dedicated to furthering the process of democratization, specifically with regard to human rights and the treatment of women, he said. Mekouar highlighted Mohammed VI’s appointment of a commission to report on human rights violations in Morocco as an example of the king’s commitment.
With regards to women, Morocco passed a family law, the “Mudawana,” an attempt to equalize the rights of women within the family. The law is the first of its kind in the Arab world. There were one million protestors against the law, many of them fundamentalists who believe that the law goes against Islam. However, the code is firmly grounded in religious thought, the ambassador stressed. “Morocco proved to the world that there is no contradiction between Islam and equality between men and women.”
Civil society is an indicator of democratization, and Mekouar argued that civil society has flourished in Morocco in the last fifteen years, at the local, regional, and national levels. People realized that “the government cannot reach and do everything,” he said. “If people make a country by themselves for themselves, this is a good recipe for success.”
Economically, Morocco is making strides, the ambassador maintained. Positive economic indicators include a balanced budget, high currency reserves, a small amount of debt, and a growing GDP per capita.
Given Morocco’s relatively progressive policies, Mekouar is often approached about whether these reforms can be applied across North Africa. “People always ask me if Morocco can be a model for other countries. But each country has its own reality,” he stated.
Despite these reforms, the picture in Morocco is not all rosy. Although the level of poverty has decreased, in Morocco you still see “the first world and the third world living side by side,” he said, especially in the countryside.
The Moroccan education system is not up to par. Although 30 percent of the state budget is spent on education, students going through the traditional university system are not finding jobs, because universities aren’t preparing people to be hired by the growing business community. If Morocco continues the way it is going, “40-50 years from now, the country will not be equipped for the challenges of the world economy,” he said.
Mekouar highlighted several strategies for continued economic growth and democratization. Structural reform in Morocco needs to go into making the country as business friendly as possible, he argued. “This is not easy because Morocco is a bureaucratic country. We inherited the French bureaucracy, which is not an easy bureaucracy.”
According to Mekouar, Morocco needs to become completely integrated into the international economy, and can achieve this by lowering tariffs and opening its borders between Algeria and Tunisia. “The time of borders is over in the world,” he said.
The biggest challenge facing democratization in the country, Mekouar maintained, is voter turnout. With only 37 percent of the country voting in the 2007 election, Moroccans don’t yet believe in the electoral system. More resoundingly, the ambassador argued, this figure demonstrates that political parties did not reach out sufficiently to the people.
The most popular institutions in the country, according to a recent survey, are the police and the army, because people associate these institutions with the monarchy, the ambassador explained. “You don’t move from a system where you have power concentrated in the royal palace to a total change overnight,” he said. “It is an evolution of opinion.”
“The king is very popular in Morocco. People are saying ‘why do we need people sitting in Parliament, making money, when we have the king? In 2012, if political parties do what they should, then maybe we will see a better turnout,” he said.
By Watson Institute Student Rapporteur Alison Fairbrother ‘09