The Reality of Youth Unemployment and Unsuitable Development Models in the Global South: Evidence from Morocco

Abstract This article draws on the existing literature to critically analyse the issue of youth unemployment in Morocco. The author argues that youth unemployment policy has to be understood in the context of neoliberalism and its austerity policies, as youth unemployment can never be overcome while the state keeps decreasing public expenditure and privatising public resources. And more importantly, it is the World Bank and other international development agencies that design and control models of development, establishing rankings, metrics, norms, and best practices of development in Morocco. They look at the Global South through their eyes rather than through local eyes. These models, unsuitable for the realities of the Global South, have always resulted in a distorted development model, due to the failure to take into consideration the conditions of the Global South's societies, cultures, and history.