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Rabat – Morocco has made notable progress in reducing poverty over the last decade, according to a new report by the High Commission for Planning (HCP).
The rate of people living in multidimensional poverty fell from 11.9% in 2014 to 6.8% in 2024. This means the number of poor people dropped from about 4 million to 2.5 million in 10 years.
Multidimensional poverty measures not just income, but also lack of access to education, health, housing, and basic services. The report notes that the average level of deprivation among the poor also slightly declined, from 38.1% to 36.7%.
Despite this progress, poverty remains much more common in rural areas. In 2024, about 72% of people living in poverty were in the countryside, compared to 79% in 2014. Rural poverty decreased from 23.6% to 13.1%, but this is still more than four times the poverty rate in urban areas, which stood at just 3% in 2024.
The number of people at risk of falling into poverty also went down. About 8.1% of the population is now considered vulnerable to poverty, compared to 11.7% in 2014. However, 82% of them live in rural areas, showing that rural families still face serious risks of slipping into poverty.
Read also: Vulnerability to Poverty Grows in Morocco’s Urban Areas
All regions of Morocco saw improvements, but the largest drops in poverty were in Marrakech-Safi, Beni Mellal-Khenifra, Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima, and Draa-Tafilalet. But some regions still show poverty rates above the national average of 6.8%, including Beni Mellal-Khénifra (9.8%) and Fes-Meknes (9%).
The southern regions, such as Laayoune-Sakia El Hamra and Dakhla-Oued Ed-Dahab, recorded the lowest poverty rates, both below 2.5%.
Five regions are home to nearly 70% of Morocco’s poor, including Fes-Meknes, Marrakech-Safi, Casablanca-Settat, Rabat-Sale-Kénitra, and Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima.
The report also noted that nearly 94% of Morocco’s municipalities saw poverty decrease between 2014 and 2024. This change was more visible in rural communities (95.5%) than in urban areas (88.4%).
Traditional poverty measures based only on household spending are not enough, HCP assessed. It argued that multidimensional poverty gives a more complete picture of people’s living conditions, as it takes into account education, health, and access to basic needs.
The new poverty map is meant to help the government design better, more targeted policies to improve people’s lives across all regions, the report concluded.
