Institutional strengthening of the start-up ecosystem in Morocco

In recent years, considerable efforts from the public and private sectors have been made to promote an enabling environment for start-up enterprises in Morocco. This environment includes the implementation of financial and non-financial support programmes, and the development of ecosystem actors - incubators, accelerators, innovation centres and associations. In 2019, the Moroccan Start-up Ecosystems Catalysts (MSEC) federation was founded to promote the start-up ecosystem, respond to ecosystem challenges and promote the professionalisation of the ecosystem. Concerted capacity building of ecosystem actors, collaborative planning, and cooperation between key stakeholders reinforces the start-up ecosystem and ensures high quality and professionalised support to start-up enterprises.

Under the PROMET project of Moroccan-German cooperation, support was provided to MSEC and the start-up ecosystem to review and update the long-term strategy of the Moroccan Start-up Ecosystem (Plan Startup MoroccoTech), strengthen the network of ecosystem actors to promote the emergence of a start-up ecosystem, and build the capacities of the network around MSEC to implement the envisioned activities. adelphi, using participatory and co-creative workshop approaches to engage stakeholders, implemented these activities to support the development of the start-up ecosystem in Morocco. Building on existing insights from ongoing projects in Morocco and toolkits developed for organisational development and planning, adelphi's work promoted collaborative development of ecosystem plans and sustainable capacity development of the ecosystem.