Abdellah Boussouf: The Opening of Ibn Khaldoun Center on Immigration a Milestone in Research in Social Sciences

The Council of the Moroccan Community Abroad (CCME) signed two partnership agreements on Friday: the first with Al Akhawayne University for the creation of the Ibn Khaldoun Center on Immigration and the second with the Faculty of Letters and Humanities, University Mohammed V Rabat, on the launch of an annual Forum called “the Spring of Social Sciences”.

Accordingly, the signing ceremony took place at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane city, on the sidelines of the first session of this Forum. On this occasion, the secretary general of the CCME Abdallah Boussouf underlined the importance that the Council attaches to research in social sciences, given their central role in the development of public policies accompanying the changes within the Moroccan community Residing Abroad (MRE).

Boussouf considers that no effective public policy can be implemented in the absence of sociological studies, underlining the interest that the CCME has given, since its creation, to the development of scientific knowledge in this field reflected in its various publications on immigration issues and studies that are made available to all researchers.

To this end, recalls the Secretary General, the Council has adopted a participatory approach involving the university in research on immigration issues with several agreements concluded with Moroccan and European universities. For Abdellah Boussouf, the 2011 constitution raised the bar very high by devoting four articles to the Moroccan community abroad that meet their aspirations. However, he stressed that the government’s actions did not meet these aspirations. This is due, according to him, to the absence of a real scientific knowledge of the questions of the MRE. In this context, Boussouf referred to the problems raised by the recent signing of the agreement on the automatic exchange of banking information with OECD countries, considering that the government did not have sociological studies or has there been an impact study of such an agreement on society and on MRE in particular.

For his part, the Minister Delegate in charge of higher education and scientific research Driss Ouaouicha indicated that his department attaches great importance to the issue of investment in the social sciences, calling for this forum to be an international meeting point inviting various universities to participate to serve the influence of our country and for more interactions and exchange of experiences between researchers.

In the same vein, the President of Mohammed V University highlighted the ambition of the university to give an international dimension to this forum in order to support Moroccans around the world interested in sociology.

The president of Al Akhawayn University, Amine Bensaid also underlined the centrality of the social sciences in the development of public policies, along with other sciences and specialties. He revealed that Al Akhawayn University aspires to make Ifrane a smart university city that places the citizen at the center of its development by obviously putting the social sciences at the forefront to serve this purpose.