Economics & Global Affairs

The swiftness with which the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has launched its civil nuclear program presents a number of challenges for policymakers in seeking to ensure the program's safety and security. At the onset of its efforts, the UAE government consulted with a set of the world's leading nuclear suppliers to develop a framework that would help its nuclear program conform to the highest standards in terms of safety, security, and nonproliferation. The UAE drew on these consultations in making a sweeping set of international commitments in April 2008 to ensure that the sensitive nuclear materials and technologies it would acquire as part of its nuclear program would be securely controlled.1 While the UAE has been widely praised for the depth and breadth of the nonproliferation commitments it has made, it will be the UAE's efficacy at complying with them by which its success will be judged.

Morocco, one of the fastest growing countries in Africa,  enjoys a diversified economy with growing manufacturing and service sectors. However, like many similar emerging markets, it faces the challenge of integrating a large number of smallholder farmers into an increasingly sophisticated economy. This policy brief outlines opportunities for Morocco to improve the economic outcomes of smallholder farmers by expanding production of high-value agricultural products. The paper identifies challenges small farmers face in producing high-value products, proposes aggregation as a policy recommendation for improving participation in these markets, evaluates the benefits and limitations of this choice, and provides implementation recommendations to mitigate unintended negative consequences of aggregation.