Morocco’s Global Reputation Soars Following Historic 2022 World Cup Performance

The results of the ninth edition of the survey on Morocco’s reputation in the world, conducted between March and April 2023 by the Royal Institute for Strategic Studies (IRES), for the year 2023, in partnership with the Reputation Lab firm, are known. To carry out its study, IRES conducted interviews in 26 countries on five continents. Five criteria were taken into account: institutional quality, quality of life, level of development, human factor, ethics and responsibility. The survey reveals that the kingdom’s external reputation index is down slightly by 0.7 points compared to 2022, which is almost identical to that of the average of the 60 countries with the highest GDP (-0.6 points). However, this index remains positive. Morocco ranks 34th in the ranking of the 60 countries analyzed, ahead of the United States and behind Peru.

Over the period from 2015 to 2023, Morocco enjoys a positive reputation in African countries such as South Africa, Algeria, Egypt, Kenya and Nigeria, as well as in European countries such as Germany, Spain, France, the United Kingdom and Sweden. The kingdom goes from 18 countries having a positive reputation of it in 2015 to 26 nations in 2023. It owes this rise to the historic exploits of the Atlas Lions at the 2022 Qatar World Cup. Morocco became the first Arab and African country to reach the semifinals of a World Cup for the first time, after beating football powerhouses like Spain and Portugal. As for the internal reputation index, it reaches 61.1 points, down 2.3 points after the peak of 2022.

Regarding the "Quality of Life" and "Human Factor" criteria, foreign respondents believe that Morocco benefits from a pleasant natural environment and a certain level of security. The kingdom, on the other hand, is a poor performer in terms of ethics and responsibility.