Today, around three million Moroccans live outside the country. In total they send more than three billion euros to the area they come from every year. Has it helped?

Moroccans hoist the Dutch flag

Fouad Haji from Rotterdam was born forty years ago in the Rif Mountains, the area along the Mediterranean coast from which many Moroccan men have left for Europe. They were later followed by their families. This is how Haji, now a Rotterdam councillor, came to the Netherlands at the age of 13. He still visits his homeland regularly and is very critical about what migration has done for his country.

"In the first instance you would say migration has done a lot for the people of the Rif Mountains. You see beautiful, large newly-built houses. The people who stayed behind can depend on receiving financial support," says Haji, who has just returned from a conference in Morocco, at which this very problem was discussed.

"But the disadvantage is that Rabat thinks that these people can look after themselves. The government leaves the region to fend for itself. All attention is focused on other regions in the country. That is annoying. If you look at the democratisation process, the level of education, depth of investment, industry and healthcare, then the Rif Mountains is still a deprived area. More than 60 percent of the money in Morocco is earned there, but it is not invested there. That annoys me."

History

In the year Haji was born, 1969, Morocco and the Netherlands reached an agreement on migration. Belgium, France, and Germany had already done so long before. The Moroccan government stimulated the migration of labour from the impoverished Rif Mountains to the wealthy European continent. Rabat hoped this would tame the rebellious region.

     Moroccans hoist the Dutch flag

As a result of the economic crisis in the 1970s, many of the Moroccan migrants did not return to the region. Many families followed the men. Today around three million Moroccans live outside the country, a large proportion of them born outside Morocco. In spite of the increasing integration there are substantial social problems surrounding the Moroccan community in these countries.

Investment

There are around a million Moroccans in France and roughly 380,000 in the Netherlands. There are also Moroccans in Spain, Germany, Italy, and in the Gulf States and North America nowadays as well. In total they send around 3.5 billion euros to their mother country via official channels every year, says Morocco researcher Paolo de Mas.

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