The Royal Institute for Strategic Studies has released its latest report, classing countries by reputation. The report ranked Morocco 35th in the world with a score of 58.8 out of 100, placing the North African country among the countries with the m...
The Royal Institute for Strategic Studies has released its latest report, classing countries by reputation. The report ranked Morocco 35th in the world with a score of 58.8 out of 100, placing the North African country among the countries with the most positive reputations. “The reputation of Morocco among the G8 [Group of eight] countries’ citizens experienced a slight improvement in 2019 and scored 58.8 points (out of 100) in the Country RepTrak Pulse I indicator.” The Group of Eight countries refers to highly industrialized countries, such as Russia, Canada, Japan, Italy, the UK, France, and the US. The report shows that the pulse indicator takes into account several criteria to come up with a final finding, including the admiration, esteem, confidence, and good impression that G8 citizens have for other countries.
Morocco’s score rose up by 0.7 points compared to the 2018 results, the executive summary of the report said.
“If we consider that the global average for countries measured by G8 is 59.8 points, we can observe that Morocco is in line with the average reputation within the study, at the same 35th position as last year,” .” Morocco maintains good diplomatic ties and trade activities with each country in the G8. The Office of the US States Trade Representative shared statistics about trade activities between Rabat and Washington, stipulating that Morocco is the US’ 64th “largest trading partner with $4.5billion in total (two way) goods trade during 2018.” The office indicates that exports reached £2.9 billion, while goods imports totaled £1.6 billion.
Morocco’s weakness Despite being a politically stable country, several internal crises lost points for Morocco, including the education system. “Morocco’s weaknesses, when compared to the average of the countries analyzed, are related to the attributes that measure the education system, the knowledge of its brands and companies and the technological capacity of the country.” Recent statistics from the High Commission for Planning (HCP) show low numbers of girls enrolled at schools in Morocco’s rural areas. The statistics indicate that the pre-school enrolment rate for girls in rural areas stood at 25.4% in 2019, against 53.9% for urban girls. The drop-out rate among rural girls is 6.9% for primary school compared to 4.7 % for city dwellers.
Internal reputation The report also pointed out other issues, such as internal reputation crises in Morocco. The report said that “globally, citizen’s perception of their own country (internal perception) is more positive than the external one. But Morocco is following another trend.” The report said that the difference between internal and external reputation is only 1.5 points in 2019 against 8.8 in 2018. “[It is] mostly because of the decline in internal reputation,” the report finds. The report believes that for Moroccans, a good country is where you can find “welcoming people, being a beautiful country and being a safe place.” In addition to the G8, the report also evaluated 17 other countries’ perception about Morocco. The ranking cited Mexico as an example. “Mexico also appreciates Morocco, giving the country a more moderate score (60.4 Pulse points).”
The report listed Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, and New Zealand as the top five countries with the “best reputation.”
