Foreign aid for rural development: village design and planning in post-independence Morocco

During the late colonial era and after independence, international organizations engaged in donating foreign aid to Morocco. The United Nations' technical assistance initiatives ambitious schemes targeting rural realm. Among them, Lalla Mimouna community development project (1957–1965), Projet Sebou (1963–1980), Programme d'habitat (1967–1972). All three projects were concerned about physical environment, which is assessed this article on a common scale: village. Given that they each focus geographical area of Gharb plain, these offer cross-section over entanglements between their supporting organizations' policies disciplinary expertise village planning design. After providing an overview agendas aforementioned UN bodies, we discuss case studies basis unpublished archival material. Then, overlaps bodies' ideologies relation inherited from era, selective appropriation by Moroccan polities. Finally, argue whereas practices highly sensitive shifting paradigms organizations, design remained relatively autonomous. This raises questions concerning capacity disciplines carry out emancipatory missions.