The restoration of the old mosque, the construction of a tourist information centre, the creation of socio-educational centres and local sports fields, the start of construction work on primary and secondary schools, the construction of a bus station and a weekly market, the upgrading of urban roads and liquid sanitation in the various districts of the city, such are the perceptible signs of a city that is developing.

Less than four years ago, Smara, pompously called the spiritual capital of the Sahara, was only a hostile village where the most daring visitor could not claim to stay beyond a few hours, as the most basic means were non-existent.

Today, at the northern entrance to the city, the visitor is surprised by the green belt intended to protect the city from the sand winds that threatened it. This green belt in the middle of the desert gives the impression of having suddenly passed into another universe. Next to the usual police station common to all border towns, a tourist information centre, the first of its kind in the southern provinces, indicates places likely to interest the visitor as well as accommodation possibilities in this city where reception and accommodation infrastructures continue to worry local officials who are trying to attract investors in this sector.

The creation of a Faculty in the city of Smara is another asset that is added to the achievements accomplished.

If in Laâyoune, it was decided to create a higher technical school, the Faculty of Sharia can only have its place in the spiritual and cultural capital of the Saharan provinces.

The Faculty of Sharia which will be created in Smara and will come under the Al Quaraouiyine University, will fill a gap in the field of higher education, long denounced by the inhabitants of the southern provinces. Operational from the start of the next school year, it will offer several new courses and will welcome students from the four corners of the world. It will offer numerous teachings focused on different sciences, among others the study of Islamic theology. The creation of this Faculty will aim to boost the local cultural field, to make this city a destination of choice for students from the southern provinces and elsewhere.

It will also complete an educational complex set up by the authorities. This complex includes several primary and secondary schools that welcome a few tens of thousands of students. In parallel with these schools and with the concern to preserve a secular tradition which earned Smara the name of cultural and spiritual capital of the Sahara, the authorities have set out to create several Quranic schools in the various districts of the city.

These districts are, in the current state, only a large construction site where several building and public works companies are at work to build a modern city with adequate infrastructures and roads.

In the city of Smara, all sectors of life are concerned by the wind of development that is blowing on it. Whether it is health, education, rural roads, not to mention the social economy which, with the support of local authorities, is experiencing an exemplary boom, through programmes financed, for the most part, if not entirely by the INDH.

The city of Laâyoune will, for its part, see the creation of the first Higher School of Technology in the southern provinces. The cost of this operation is estimated at more than 5 million DH. This school will be built on an area of 3.7 ha, at the 25 March subdivision located in the east of the city. The School will thus be composed of services dedicated to technical education, including an amphitheatre that can accommodate up to 250 students as well as 22 classrooms.

In addition, this establishment, whose opening is scheduled for September 2012, will ensure a set of courses intended for training in fields in harmony with the local job market. The specialities will include computer, electrical, and communication engineering, as well as fisheries production given the development of this activity in the southern provinces.

In parallel, two new French schools, affiliated to the network of the International School and University Office (OSUI), could soon see the light of day in Laâyoune and Dakhla. These new establishments will thus contribute to the opening of these two cities to their surroundings.

Let us recall that since their creation, the three Regional Academies of Education and Training of the Laâyoune-Boujdour-Sakia El-Hamra, Guelmim-Smara, and Oued Eddahab-Lagouira region, in close collaboration with the supervisory department, have been able to master the significant evolution of the demography and socio-economic orientations of this region of the Kingdom, offering young students from these provinces solid foundations for access to knowledge, qualification, and later to employment.