Vous consultezProjets d’aménagement et développement territorial : le cas du périmètre irrigué du moyen Sebou au Maroc

Marcel Kuper du même auteur

Mostafa Errahj du même auteur

Abstract
Public action in the rural areas in the South is generally perceived through State-led development projects, masking slower and less visible processes of territorial development involving different actors and social networks. We analyze the confrontation of a state-led irrigation project, carried out in the framework of the international paradigm of ’Participative Irrigation Management’, and a rural territory in the North of Morocco, by looking at the configuration and interaction of actors linked to public action. Our results show that the state-led project has progressively opened up to other actors. The irrigation associations have crafted new management rules, and adapted the technical project to their situation. The emergence of new leaders, which have subsequently distinguished themselves in local development projects and local politics, have multiplied the development clusters in this territory, as the State has no longer a monopole on technical knowledge.. These results imply a change in the reference frame for the analysis of public action in the rural areas in Morocco, as they suppose a change in the way local elites are composed and how leaders obtain new competence. This also means that the formulation and implementation of public policies involves more horizontal networks with different institutions providing different competence.

Keywords

Development projects, irrigation, Morocco, public action, territorial development