New release : Morocco country page and land sector Snapshot

The Arab Land Initiative is pleased to share the new Morocco country page and downloadable Snapshot, which contain an overview of the Morocco land sector. The Morocco country page also contains a selection of other informative land-related publications.

Morocco has a decentralized government that manages 12 regions based on the principle of “advanced regionalization” and is subdivided into multiple levels of government. At the top is the central level, consisting of the parliament and the monarchy, followed by the regional level, further divided into prefectures and provinces, and the local level, which consists of rural communities and municipalities. 

The legal system in Morocco characterized by legal pluralism, with both statutory and customary laws. The formal system is based on French civil law, while customary law is based on Islamic Sharia law and the traditional though informal Amazigh justice system. The 2011 Constitution considers urbanism, land management and the regimes of public, private and collective real property to be domains of the law, with provisions for some areas laid out in the Constitution.

Women and men are provided with equal rights according to Morocco’s Constitution. In practice, however, women’s rights to access and control land and natural resources are subordinated to men. Laws still favour men in land and property, particularly in how rights are enforced and in inheritance practices. Few women in Morocco own land, and even fewer own agricultural land.

Learn more about Morocco’s housing, land and property issues, its land-related legal and institutional frameworks, the relationship between women and land rights, and more on the new country page, here.