Yossef Ben-Meir
Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir is a sociologist and president of the High Atlas Foundation (www.highatlasfoundation.org) – a nonprofit organization that promotes community development in Morocco.
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Articles by Yossef Ben-Meir
May 26, 2011
The Egyptian people must still yet overturn an overbearing force that has marginalized them for generations: top-down government control of budgets and local development. Egypt´s central government administration denies the people´s decision-making in prioritizing resources and projects...
May 26, 2011
The fatal terrorist bombing at a tourist cafe in Marrakech that took the lives of 17 people makes it more urgent for Morocco to implement its vision, which is a new social contract. In a rapidly transforming North Africa and Middle East whose people are demanding broad-based socio-economic developm...
March 25, 2011
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 p...
February 03, 2011
The Kingdom of Morocco is planning to decentralize responsibilities and capacities (administrative, financial, and skills) from the capital of Rabat to sub-national levels. In decentralized systems, all phases of development projects (from design through evaluation) occur closer to or by the benefi...
February 04, 2010
In a speech on Nov. 6, 2009, King Mohammed VI of Morocco stated his intention to press ahead with decentralizing the kingdom, and that the "Saharan provinces" will be among the first regions to experience its benefits. The date marked the 34th anniversary of the Green March, when 350,000 unarmed Mor...
November 02, 2009
This article describes Morocco´s decentralization plan for the country as a way to promote development and a resolution to the Western Sahara conflict. This November 6th, the anniversary of the Green March, King Mohammed VI of Morocco will address the nation. The article also suggests how he could use this opportunity to build on the decentralization plan.
August 11, 2009
What was revealed about President Barack Obama´s outlook on racial issues as he dealt with the controversy over the arrest of Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.? Interestingly, the principle view shown by the President was also highlighted by his Attorney General in a contro...
July 22, 2009
On June 12th, 2009, the same day that Iran had its contentious presidential elections, Moroccans also went out to polls to participate in local elections. In stark contrast, Morocco´s elections were viewed to be both free and fair, and boasted a 15 percent increase in turnout from the 200...
June 08, 2009
Depending on how and for what international aid is administered in Pakistan, the hearts and minds of its people, and which of the opposing forces they collaborate with, hang in the balance. Recent polls indicate that the majority of Pakistanis consider economic and political conditions of gr...
January 05, 2009
What development projects deliver short-term relief to people and long-term economic structural change for sustained growth and should therefore be part of the upcoming economic stimulus package? The answer: projects determined and managed by the local communities they are intended to benefit.
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November 30, 2008
Considering the economic and political challenges facing the United States and the world today, and given the lessons learned in foreign assistance since it began after World War II with the Marshall Plan, now is the time that the Peace Corps should amend the role that its volunteers play in interna...
October 27, 2008
In recent weeks, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, this year´s Nobel Prize winner in economics Paul Krugman, and many political leaders have expressed support for a fiscal stimulus package in the face of the economic crisis. The United States Government´s deliberate use of the fiscal tool to j...
September 23, 2008
The denigration of ´community organizing´ by Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin and former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani at the Republican Convention could become a setback for their party if the American public came to understand the real lessons of community organizing about h...
September 15, 2008
At the Republican National Convention, Rudolph Guiliani and then vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin disregarded and seemed to mock Barack Obama´s background as a community organizer. Guiliani, a former Republican presidential candidate, went on to liken community organizing to something co...
July 17, 2008
Recently, Senator Barack Obama announced his plan for the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives if he became president. Although his proposals are in the right direction, other formative measures can be taken to strengthen community and individual empowerment throu...
July 01, 2008
Community organizing means different things to different people, but its basic intention is to bring people together at the local level to talk about the socioeconomic and environmental challenges they face, work through their differences, and then implement their own plan of action to meet...
June 10, 2008
Decentralization has divergent meanings and serves different ideological interests. Generally, however, it seeks greater representation in development initiatives from the popular majority, the local poor, and from political, religious, ethnic, and tribal groups. The purpose of decentralizing init...
June 02, 2008
Decentralization has divergent meanings and serves different ideological interests. Generally, however, it seeks greater representation in development initiatives from the popular majority, the local poor, and from political, religious, ethnic, and tribal groups. The purpose of decentralizing...
April 12, 2008
Barack Obama´s community organizing background in Chicago gives him a special opportunity to expand his base of support to include the millions of Republican and Independent voters who identify closely with the principles of federalism. Federalism, a founding precept of the Republican Party mo...
January 08, 2008
It may initially seem a paradox that national-level governments are strengthened when they decentralize decision-making power by giving local communities control over, or at least a decisive voice in, matters relating to their own development. One naturally assumes that a country’s autonomy is stre...
January 02, 2007
It is becoming increasingly likely that some form of break-up will be the fate of the nation-state of Iraq. Such a break-up will reflect the relationships among Iraq’s Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish groups, and the relationships of these groups to the central government, which in turn should have major...
December 14, 2006
As the United States determines a new strategy in Iraq, it is extremely unfortunate for the Iraqis and for the U.S. standing there and throughout the region that any extensive overhaul of reconstruction efforts is unlikely at this critical time. One reason is that very little money is now being a...
December 02, 2006
The United Nation’s High Level Group for the Alliance of Civilizations recently issued its final report, which included ambitious and important recommendations to bridge the divide between Western nations and the Muslim world. The Group’s 20 eminent members were brought together by Secretary Genera...
March 30, 2006
With hundreds of millions of dollars becoming available for Morocco through the new U.S. foreign aid initiative, Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), millions of Moroccans can potentially be engaged in a development process that generates significant socio-economic benefits for them and their communi...
March 06, 2006
The ultimate victor in the War of Ideas is likely to be the ideology or political philosophy that consistently translates into socio-economic, political, and cultural development for the people, en masse. This is a vital time for the United States to show the Muslim World that it is, in fact, serio...