The proceedings of an international symposium on "Human rights and territorial development: towards a new model of governance" started on Thursday in Marrakech, with the participation of a host of experts, academics, university professors, magistrates, and elected officials.

Initiated jointly by the Hans Seidel Foundation, the Research Group on Space and Territories (GRET), the UNESCO Chair on Human Rights, and the Ecole Sup de Co Marrakech, this meeting aims to conduct an in-depth reflection on the correlation between human rights and the right to development as well as on the ways and mechanisms to make territories places of change and requalification of social and political life, social cohesion, and innovative political competitiveness through the prism of human rights.

According to the organizers, in view of contemporary political changes, the territory is becoming increasingly important for the experimentation of development policies and social, political, economic, and cultural promotion and is becoming a strategic actor of development and a fundamental value to give meaning to human rights. This meeting will focus on the means to organize territorial powers from a perspective of human rights development and to develop and conduct territorial policies that give materiality to fundamental social rights.

It is also about reflecting on how territorial action can favor the emergence of active, acting, and valuing citizenship, the valorization of human and solidarity action in a given territory, as well as the means to reduce the margins of discrimination and social dislocation.