Decentralized North-South cooperation and rural territorial development, what articulation? Case of rural tourism projects in the provinces of AZILAL and KHENIFRA

Abstract

The countries of the North and South of the Mediterranean, historically interdependent due to their geostrategic position and their common interests, found themselves forced to be stand and cooperate together. This cooperation between the two shores of the Mediterranean has therefore taken a particular form of international solidarity, which has mobilized the action of local authorities involved in projects intervening in very varied fields of action through decentralized cooperation. Nevertheless, several questions have arisen concerning the impact of these actions on territorial development, especially rural territorial entities that suffer the most from poverty and marginality.

To understand the issues that manipulate this type of cooperation and its impact on the development of marginal rural territories, we mobilized socio-economic indicators, mainly employment and income, as well as tourist supply and demand, within the framework of an empirical study based on the mixed method, where it was a question of evaluating and then comparing these indicators, through a questionnaire addressed to the local actors of rural tourism, at the level of two marginal rural territories endowed with considerable tourist amenities , one of which benefited from decentralized cooperation actions targeting the tourism sector.

This method of evaluation allowed us to deduce that decentralized cooperation, although it intervenes through very inexpensive actions, but it can however constitute an effective form of intervention for the valorization of territorial resources and to ensure the anchoring of rural tourist activity among the local populations, who adopt it as a territorial project and make it a means of sustainable territorial development.