Food insecurity and malnutrition are major concerns, especially in rural areas. Globally, they have received considerable attention, but results have been mixed. To provide effective long-term solutions, policy responses must be tailored to the specific challenges of each territory.

Morocco is making a concerted effort to reduce its internal regional inequalities, and has gone some way towards “territorialising” both sectoral policies and democratic decision-making processes. Interventions aimed to improve the food security and nutrition (FSN) situation in marginalised areas range from human development to rural infrastructure provision and the promotion of endogenous development potential in local areas. The country’s political decentralisation agenda has further helped to bring decision making closer to the people, and has facilitated the formulation of policies tailored to context-specific needs and opportunities. Nevertheless, challenges remain, including weak horizontal co-ordination mechanisms across sectors, which risk leading to duplication of effort and a lack of scaled interventions. Fragmented territorial information systems further complicate implementation of the government’s continuing commitment to adopt territorial approaches. Moving forward, increased capacity at the local level, as well as the involvement of sub-national authorities in policy-making processes at all levels, will be critical