A 68m dirham fund has been earmarked to support co-ops and social enterprises across Morocco, and to improve training and support initiatives within the sector.
In practice, this will take the form of the national Mozara programme, which aims to support finance development projects for the sector – for example, by backing the “rehabilitation, construction, and equipping” of 325 co-ops, as well as the formation and resourcing of 100 new ones.
Addressing Morocco’s House of Representatives, Akhannouch highlighted some of the key stats around the country’s co-op sector. This is now made up of 63,545 co-ops, he said, with more than a third – 22,914 – founded between 2021 and 2025. These have over 878,000 members, with approximately 34% of them being women.
On the point of gender inclusion, Akhannouch also added that there are now a total of 7,891 women-led co-ops in the country.
This highlights the increasing relevance of the co-op sector to Moroccan society. Last year, the country celebrated the International Year of Cooperatives with an event featuring government representatives, co-op leaders, and development partners.
At the time, Aicha Errifaai – director general of the Co-operative Development Office (OCDO), said: “Our ambition is to strengthen the support and structuring of co-operatives so that they can fully exploit their potential and contribute significantly to national economic growth.”
All this follows a longer-term strategy by the government to grow co-ops in Morocco. In 2021, the Ministry of Agriculture announced an initiative to set up 18,000 new agricultural co-ops as part of the Green Morocco Plan.
