Morocco's Cities Without Slums Project - Update

Morocco's ambitious "Cities Without Slums" project is moving forward. The Minister of Housing and City Policy, Nabil Benabdallah, speaking this week at a meeting entitled "The Quality Test for Real Estate" announced that the social housing project had signed more than 800 agreements for the construction of 1.3 million homes. He also reported that more than 500 projects have been started for more than 410,000 homes and over 180,000 homes had already received certificates of conformity.

The Minister of Housing, Nabil Benabdallah

So far 54 cities have been cleared of slums and 248,659 households have seen their housing conditions improve, as part of the "Cities Without Slums" project.

According to the Minister, by the end of August 2015, the project to create low cost temporary accommodation had completed more than 57 000 units and for middle class housing, 39 agreements were signed for the construction of nearly 15,000 housing units.

A Casablanca slum - set for clearance

The slum clearance programs have been running for a number of years. 2006 saw the relocation of 60,750 families at a cost of 6.7 billion dirhams. In 2011 a regional program relocated 45 920 families at a cost of 4.8 billion dirhams.

The minister also made note of the progress being made in quality control and technical standards for all new buildings. There are now 13 technical committees drawing up standards for for building materials, improving the competitiveness of industrial building materials, promoting health and safety regulations as well as strengthening of the Moroccan regulatory system relating to construction products and certification of international standards.

These 13 committees cover  all facets of building construction, including hardware, wall tiles, terracotta earthen products, plumbing, windows and mirrors, carpentry standards for doors and windows, fittings and sanitary products, thermal insulation, sound insulation, building performance as well as sustainable construction methods.

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