Join on WhatsApp
Join on Telegram
Rabat – Morocco is seeing a strong downward trend in all forms of poverty rates, which have become statistically insignificant in urban areas.
Financial poverty affects only 2 percent of people in urban areas and almost 9 percent in rural areas, says a report by the High Commission of Planning (HCP).
With a decline rate of 9.4 percent per year, the overall population suffering from multidimensional poverty has decreased from 7.5 million in 2004 to 2.8 million in 2014, said the HCP in its report on multidimensional poverty in 2014, published on October 5.
The impact of multidimensional poverty decreased from 25.0 percent to 8.2 percent between 2004-2014 at the national level. In urban areas, the rate of multidimensional poverty fell from 9.1 percent to 2 percent in urban areas, and from 44.6 percent to 17.7 percent in rural areas.
Multidimensional poverty remains predominantly a rural phenomenon. By 2014, 85.4 percent of multidimensional poor people live in rural areas, compared with 80 percent in 2004.
The phenomenon is a result ofseveral factors, notes the HCP, particularlyadult education, which alone accounts for 34 percent of poverty at the national level, while child illiteracymakes up21.3 percent.
Overall, education gaps account for slightly more than half(55.3 percent)of multidimensional poverty.
Deprivations in terms of access to basic social infrastructure account for 19.7 percent of multidimensional poverty: 14.1 percent for deprivations in terms of habitat conditions, and 10.9 percent in terms of health.
In urban areas, 60.8 percent of multidimensional poverty is due to deficits in education,for adults at 36.8 percent and for children at 24 percent. Inequality in terms of health contributes 24.5 percent of poverty in urban poverty.
Lack of educational deprivation (54.5 percent), access to basic social infrastructure (21.2 percent), and housing conditions (15.3 percent) are the major drivers of multidimensional poverty in rural areas.
Poorest Regions in Morocco, Getting rich
Between 2004 and 2014, the incidence of multidimensional poverty declined in all regions. The poorest regions in 2004 experienced the largest decline in poverty, namely the Marrakech-Safi regions, from 34 percent to 11.3 percent, Tangier-Tétouan-Al Hoceima, from 30.3 percent to 9.5 percent and Béni Mellal-Khénifra, from 31 percent to 13.4 percent.
Though the trend saw a decline in terms of provinces between 2004 and 2014, it still varies greatly from province to another.
Thisdecline wasover 80 percent in the provinces of Skhirate-Témara, Nouaceur, Aousserd, Mediouna, Casablanca, Essemara, Rabat, Boujdour, Laayoune and Oued-Ed-Dahab, between 80 percent and 50 percentin 59 provinces, and between 26 percent and 49.7 percentin the rest of the provinces, namely Boulemane, Jerada, Taounate, Azilal and Assa-Zaga.
The distribution of poverty shows that 3.5 million people or 10.3 percent of the population have a single poverty, 2.3 million suffer from multidimensional poverty (6.8 percent) and 1.2 million from financial poverty (3.5 percent). Meanwhile, 463,000 people or 1.4 percent of the population, are victims of both multidimensional poverty and financial poverty.
With these three indices, the rate of poverty in its financial and multidimensional forms accounts for 3.9 million people, representing an overall poverty rate of 11.7 percent nationally, 3.9 percent in cities and 23.7 percent in the countryside.
