Morocco Faces Workplace Safety Crisis: 2,000 Annual Deaths Prompt Calls for Reform

During a virtual restitution workshop, devoted to the presentation of the Council’s opinion entitled "Occupational Health and Safety: Essential Support for Economic and Social Development", Ahmed Reda Chami called for vigilance in order to "remedy the shortcomings and advance health and safety standards in our country."

For the President of CESE, everyone is concerned by these occupational risks, as they can result either in work accidents or in the development of so-called occupational diseases.

As part of a self-referral, a study was carried out by CESE on the issue of occupational health and safety. This study concerns both the public and private sectors with their different components, in particular VSEs, the agricultural sector and the informal sector.

This study identified significant gaps in the field of occupational health and safety. Among these gaps are the limited implementation of occupational health and safety rules in the private sector, the non-inclusion of the system in the public sector and a lack of specialized skills. Added to this are problems of governance of the occupational health and safety system, the dispersion of responsibility for managing health and safety between several actors, the limitations of national legislation in the face of international standards and the weakness of social protection.

However, significant progress has been made in this area, according to the same study. These include the development of the framework law on occupational health and safety, the creation of the National Institute of Working Conditions and the development of the national policy and national program on occupational health and safety for the period 2020-2024.