Water Infrastructures Facing Sustainable Development Challenges: Integrated Evaluation of Impacts of Dams on Regional Development in Morocco

During the past century, large hydraulic infrastructures have been considered as the most effective tools for increasing water supply and rationalise water management. According to this approach, large infrastructures are seen as catalysts for territorial development and economic progress. More recently, international surveys of results of water supply policies and performances of large dams, show that these structures need to be integrated in more comprehensive Integrated Water Resource Management strategies at catchments’ scale, to promote equitable and sustainable regional development. The aim of this communication is to present the role of large hydraulic infrastructures within the regional development dynamics with particular attention to the Sebou basin in Morocco, in order to assess some relevant impacts on local communities and their ecosystems. The Sebou region is one of the most important basins in Morocco, in the context of the national strategies and policies of management of water resources, established by the Water Law of 1995. The development of hydraulic infrastructures in the Sebou Basin begun in 1935, with construction of a complex of ten large dams and nine small dams, to provide water for agriculture, domestic and industrial use, and to generate hydropower and control floods, in line with the national water policies that, from the 1960s onwards, looked at large dams as core infrastructures for regional development. A critical view will be given about the coherence of this strategy with the sustainability principles.Water Policy, Morocco, Dams, Sustainable Development, Impacts

Venice reshaped? : Tourist gentrification and sense of place

This chapter is aimed to explore the role of tourism in reshaping historical cities, particularly into forms of cosmopolitan consumption. New mobility paradigms seem to merge production and consumption patterns of tourists and residents, all influenced by similar gazing and performing places. The iconic case of Venice shows patterns of staged authenticity, reconstructed ethnicity, and economy of subordination. Drivers to visit Venice include experiences in a setting that is densely characterized by cultural heritage; however, the tourist monoculture and cosmopolitan consumption have depleted the original elements of this attraction: traditional places, residents, livelihoods, material and immaterial cultures. Culture markets and international events, architectural and environmental restoration, together with private forms of transport in the fragile lagoon ecosystem, have transformed the historical city and its unique lifestyle into a place for cosmopolitan consumption, involving tourists together with new residents, sometimes integrating wealthy long-term residents in this overall tourism gentrification. Deprived of great part of what is considered to be the old and conservative block of residents, the gentrified residents acquire spaces for their cultural activities and political acts in their ‘saving Venice’ projects. Two gentrifying groups are described in this chapter: super rich with their philanthropic associations, and intellectuals. Despite clear differences in their causes and agency, both share common visions over leisurely uses of the lagoon city, artistic production and consumption of its heritage. Sustainability questions could instead propose to start from local memories to reconstruct Venice as a complex urban space with more inclusive sense of place.Peer reviewe

Mega-irrigation and neoliberalism in postcolonial states : Evolution and crisis in the Gharb Plain, Morocco

This article explores the development, evolution and impacts of large-scale irrigation schemes in the formation of the postcolonial state of Morocco and in more recent neoliberal decades. In particular, the article focuses on the Gharb Plain in the Sebou River basin, which was targeted by huge investments to become the core region for national development. In this area, three stages of development – colonial, early independent, and the aggressive politique des grandes barrages post-1970 – have created two clearly different and successive landscapes. The traditional landscape has been overlain, and largely obliterated, by colonial and postcolonial governmental landscapes, reflected through different spatial, economic, cultural, and political patterns over time. In the present, a fourth stage of neoliberal development is occurring in the landscape, in which diffused poverty and ecosystem collapse coincide with greater concentrated wealth and the building of technological infrastructures. The article aims to complement critical studies on neoliberal environments, by focusing in particular on the manipulation, dispossession and commodification of water and land resources in irrigated agriculture in Morocco. These emerging rationalities are closely related to the changing policies of the contemporary Moroccan state.Peer reviewe

Included or excluded? Civil society, local agency and the support given by European aid programmes

This article analyses some problems emerging in aid practices aimed to support civil society in developing countries. First, it reports the debate emerged in critical development studies regarding non-state actors, and particularly nongovernmental organizations, which have progressively substituted public institutions in service provision and in representative forums, often as a consequence of external pressures made by international donors. Secondly, it analyses the European aid programme named “Non-State Actors and Local Authorities in Development”, whose aim is to fight poverty and increase governance through actions empowering local organisations. More specifically, it evaluates the programme’s coherence and effectiveness in five visited countries (Georgia, Occupied Palestinian Territory, Zimbabwe, Rwanda and Cameroon) and, particularly, in two projects based in Rwanda. These two case studies show very different results as far as local involvement. Interviews, field visits and analyses of project reports reveal the diverse nature of the various organizations that compose the non-state actors, and their different capacity to express local agency. External donors need to redefine their aid relations in a way to effectively empower the most vulnerable groups.Peer reviewe