With socio-revolutionary movements in North Africa and the Middle East and governments in the region seeking to identify and implement viable models for political reform and development, Morocco is fortunate to have been raising public awareness during the past two years about its decentralization plan. Morocco's approach to promoting both democracy and development – which King Mohammed VI often discusses and did right after the nation-wide protests of February 20th – is to wed the two together so that each is advanced by way of the other. In practice, this means that Moroccan people at the local level are to engage in participatory democratic planning and managing of development initiatives that are intended to benefit them. Moroccan sustainable development is to occur through democratic exchanges and consensus-building, and democracy is to be built during the process of creating sustainable development. Decentralization, which transfers managerial authority, skills, and capacities to sub-national levels, is Morocco's chosen framework to synergistically advance democracy and development from the bottom-up.
