Scale effect on territorial disparities of sustainable human development in Morocco: a spatial analysis

Abstract

AbstractConcretizing the input of Morocco’s advanced regionalization project, which aims to reduce territorial disparities for sustainable human development, is a cornerstone for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Alongside the implementation of this project, we carried out a multiscale study of the scope of human development disparities in Morocco based on the new engineering of the territorial division across twelve regions, seventy-five provinces, and fifteen hundred communes. The study aimed to test the effect of scale modification to identify spatial concentrations through the communal human development index. The level of human development of a country is assessed through the convergence of its local HDI. We tested the scaling effect in 2004 and 2017 to determine the state of convergence of human development indicators. The spatial autocorrelation results showed that the distribution of capabilities at the communal scale remained concentrated in Morocco. Areas near developed communes follow the same pattern, at the expense of more distant areas. After the spatial configuration of advanced regionalization was undertaken, there was a decrease in regional and provincial disparities. This outcome is less notable at the communal level. Focusing on the microscale consequently becomes a preferable way to reduce inequalities in sustainable human development. Therefore, for the success and effectiveness of the advanced regionalization project in particular and for the achievement of the SDGs in general, spatial equity remains a necessary condition for the convergence of sustainable human development actions at the microscale.