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As a senior government official and highly regarded political strategist still in his late thirties, Youness Sekkouri embodies the primary goals of the newly created department – the Ministry of Economic Inclusion, Small Business, Employment, and Skills – he has been tasked with heading in the new government: youth empowerment and socio-economic inclusion.
Despite being one of the youngest faces of Morocco’s newly announced government, Sekkouri entered the political world at the even younger age of 24 as one of the founding members of the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) in 2008.
In addition to a PhD in strategy from ISCAE, a leading Moroccan business school, Sekkouri holds two MBAs from the Ecole des Ponts Business School in Paris and the Fox School of Business and Management of Temple university in the US.
Prior to his appointment this week to head Morocco’s ministry of economic inclusion, he served as the Regional Dean, Head of Programs, Global Executive MBA and Executive Certificate Programs of the Africa campus of the Ecole des Ponts Business School in Paris.
“Since the launch of our African Executive Campus in Morocco, a meaningful and compelling tagline was needed to make sure our model of business education is best fitted to the present and future of the regional and international business dynamics,” Sekkouri said in a recent statement.
As a Professor of Business Strategy and New Public Management at the same school, he mainly taught corporate strategy courses.
Also known as Ecole des Ponts ParisTech, the Ecole des Ponts Business School is a highly regarded business school in Paris.
A seasoned politician and geostrategist, Sekkouri was also in charge of missions at the Ministry of the Interior as he was a member of the Finance Committee at the House of Representatives.
In his new ministerial position, Sekkouri will face the onerous task of tackling several challenges such as high unemployment rates.
According to the latest data, unemployment spiked this year in Morocco compared to 2020, especially in urban areas and among highly educated and skilled workers. Morocco’s High Commissioner for Planning (HCP) stated in its latest report an increase of 0.5% in the country’s unemployment rate.
A previous report by the World Bank (WB) also mentioned that the COVID-19 crisis “disproportionately affected the most vulnerable, including women, youth, informal workers and smaller enterprises.”
Morocco’s new coalition government was formed after nearly 24 days of negotiations between the National Rally of Independents Party (RNI), the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), and the Istiqlal Party (PI), which are the three political parties that claimed the most parliamentary seats in the country’s latest general elections.
