In September 2023, a 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck Morocco, killing over 3,000 people and devastating communities and infrastructure across Greater Marrakech. The Marrakech Medina, a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site, was hit particularly hard. Countless homes and buildings collapsed, and rubble filled the historic district’s narrow alleys for weeks.
The United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP’s) National Program Coordinator for Morocco, Amal Nadim, says “rebuilding is the priority…but this reconstruction is taking place within the framework of a thoughtful and responsible approach.”
In the wake of the earthquake, Nadim said, Marrakech is taking a holistic approach to resilience. Beyond rebuilding the city’s physical infrastructure, Marrakech aims to strengthen its social, economic and environmental resilience. Not long after the earthquake, the city formally introduced the Global Environment Facility-funded and UrbanShift-supported Marrakech Ville Durable (in English, “Marrakech Sustainable City”) project: a wide-ranging initiative to accelerate an integrated and resilient approach to urban planning. Covering topics such as biodiversity, sustainable mobility and waste management, the project aims to support Marrakech to chart a more resilient future.
Specific elements of this vision are already coming into focus. Over the past two years, UrbanShift has worked with the city to shape Marrakech’s approach to resilience.
One key way for the city to build back better is to implement a low-emission zone in Marrakech’s historic Medina. As tourism and activity returned to Marrakech following the earthquake, air quality and congestion issues intensified, prompting a reckoning in the city. In November 2024, UrbanShift facilitated a Peer-to-Peer Exchange that brought representatives from Marrakech and Johannesburg to Madrid to learn from their efforts to plan and roll out the EU’s largest low-emission zone.
“It was a very rich experience in terms of knowledge-sharing, and it helped us to better understand this new concept from both the planning and the legal perspectives,” said Karam Amzil, National Project Coordinator for Marrakech Ville Durable at UNDP Morocco. “We were able to see how [the Madrid low-emission zone] can have a strong economic, social and environmental impact, so the local leaders [from Morocco] who attended the exchange were really drawn to the idea of applying this concept in the context of the Medina—the ‘beating heart of the city.’” Following the exchange, planners in Marrakech are determining possible design and policy approaches to lower emissions in the city’s Medina.
Alongside evolving the streets of the Medina to address present and future environmental concerns, Marrakech is also investing in nature-based solutions to respond to intensifying heat. Last summer, temperature records were shattered across Morocco. With its renewed focus on planning for resilience, Marrakech participated in an UrbanShift Geospatial Data Analysis Lab in June 2024 to jumpstart an effort to expand the city’s green spaces and strengthen its biodiversity.
Urban green spaces can help cool temperatures, improve air quality and offer opportunities for community connection, while rich biodiversity enhances climate resilience and improves the well-being of natural ecosystems by attracting birds and pollinators. During the UrbanShift Geospatial Data Analysis Lab, representatives from Marrakech and other Moroccan cities dug into the city’s data on green spaces and biodiversity and assessed the potential for expanding both. Following the Lab, Amzil said all of Marrakech’s green spaces are mapped and existing biodiversity is inventoried. Now, the city plans to increase green space and biodiversity in underserved and over-developed areas, like the Medina, while also creating a stewardship strategy for its green spaces.
“We were so pleased with the work we were able achieve through the UrbanShift Lab last year,” Amzil said. “Everyone from the city participated wholeheartedly and contributed and created a great deal of added value.” In fact, he added, the Lab was so transformative for the city’s approach to urban greening that Marrakech has expressed interest in organizing another lab with UrbanShift and other local partners “to enable this collective intelligence to continue to emerge and shape our approach to other challenges.”
Up next on the city’s list of priorities: electric mobility and improving waste management. UrbanShift might be concluding this year, but the inspiration from the Peer-to-Peer Exchange and the potential of applying the UrbanShift Geospatial Data Analysis Lab framework to future planning activities will continue through Marrakech’s efforts to enhance resilience for years to come.
A version of this article originally appeared on ShiftCities.org.
Eillie Anzilotti is Urban Development Communications Manager & UrbanShift Communications Lead at WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities.
Jessy Appavoo is UrbanShift Head & Regional Coordinator for Africa at C40 Cities.
