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After two months in power, Morocco’s new government has indicated that it wants to prioritize social development and post-pandemic recovery as the country reels from the prolonged impact of COVID-19. However, macro-economic stabilization, constrained financial resources, and increasing defense spending are limiting the extent to which the state can effectively pursue and finance much-needed social development plans.

The new North Africa and Sahel (NAS) program at the Middle East Institute aims to analyze and bring attention to this region’s challenges and opportunities. Placing the North Africa and Sahel region at the center of its analytical framework, NAS looks at the internal dynamics of this increasingly geopolitically important region, as well as its relationship to and influence on the Middle East, Mediterranean, Europe, Africa, and the role of global powers such as the US, Russia, and China.

Hugh Pope is joined by North Africa experts Intissar Fakir and Riccardo Fabiani to ask whether Morocco holds a winning hand in its conflict with the pro-independence Polisario Front in Western Sahara as Europe looks on timidly, wary of direct challenges to the regional power. 

Aesha Soliman is a research assistant with MEI’s North Africa and Sahel Program and a second year graduate student in the University of Florida’s MA Political Science/International Relations Program.