The work of our NGO is based in the Rif. What we call the Rif is the region recognised and described by geographers and historians, with its natural setting being the Rif mountain range and the south coast of the Mediterranean. Thus, the area that falls under CECODEL’s remit stretches from Saïdia in the east to Tangier in the west, over a strip of land that is 100 to 150 km wide.

However, the sociospatial transformations that Morocco has undergone during over 40 years of independence, as well as the marginalisation that the majority of this region has suffered and continues to suffer, have allowed for the creation of activities that are socially anti-economic and politically disastrous in the long term (emigration, smuggling, drug trafficking). This has produced a specific process whereby what has traditionally been seen as the Rif has spread quite clearly to bordering regions that are part of these anti-economic networks, such that emigration, smuggling and drug trafficking have allowed regions that are relatively far away to become part of the Rif – such as is the case with Oujda, Figuig, Taza, Taounate, Ouazzane... This means that a development policy cannot be formulated without taking this regional interdependence into consideration.

The lack of prospects of emigrating to Europe, and a decrease in smuggling activity due to the liberalisation of the Moroccan economy and the expected effects of the application of the GATT treaties, as well as the suppression of the cultivation of kif and the circulation of its products, added to the absence of the minimum conditions needed for economic development and productive investments – since the Rif region is lacking in any basic infrastructure. The few roads that Spain left after abandoning the region have deteriorated considerably and cannot be used as a means of communication that is appropriate and compatible with the progress of the end of the last century. Furthermore, the industrial infrastructure of some of the towns in the northern Morocco was dismantled after independence, as can be seen with Nador, Tetouan and Larache. The same fate was in store for the infrastructure for culture, sports and urban areas.

All these facts – and let us not forget the dangerous deterioration of the ecosystem of which erosion, deforestation, the loss of arable land and the abandonment of farming are clear examples – make it difficult to see balanced and durable development plans taking off, and the Rif becoming integrated into the national and international economic system. That is unless new organisational channels are established to provide social actors with the tools necessary to confront the challenge of development at the start of the 21^st century.

The Centre for Cooperative Studies for Local Development is one of these channels. However, due to its recent establishment and the limited resources at its disposal in the short and medium term, the primary focus of the centre’s work will be restricted to the Nador province. After this, the work of the centre will cover all provinces in the Rif by means of setting up local offices or by cooperating with other local non-governmental organisations that share with the centre the same development strategies.

The centre is convinced that – with the requisite will that we have shown – the combination of the marginalisation and under-development of the Rif could be turned around with emphasis being placed on the economic possibilities that, so far, have been hidden from view, mainly in the areas of agroecology, tourism and fishing.