Exploring Youth’s Perspectives on the Business Case for Olive Oil Sector in Morocco

Situation

The olive oil sector in the Fès-Meknès region of Morocco faces significant challenges related to youth engagement and employment. The sector is predominantly traditional, with established family businesses using conventional practices. CBI (Centre for the Promotion of Imports from Developing Countries) initiated a project to modernize the sector, improve quality, and create job opportunities for young individuals.

Assignment

The primary objective was to understand youth perspectives on the olive oil sector, identify barriers to their participation, and explore opportunities for enhancing their involvement. CBI aims to promote diversification, modernization, and quality improvements to make the sector more attractive to young workers and entrepreneurs.

Approach

The project was divided into four key phases:

1. Scope
   • Kickoff meetings to define roles, responsibilities, objectives, and problem hypotheses.
   • Desk research to identify weak spots in the value chain and opportunities for innovation.
2. Empathize (Research)
   • Conducted design research in the Fès-Meknès region, including focus group discussions (FGDs) and in-depth interviews (IDIs) with various stakeholders such as young workers, entrepreneurs, and olive oil producers.
   • Developed design research plans, discussion guides, and mobilized respondents.
   • Synthesized insights to identify key design challenges.
3. Ideate (Design Sprint)
   • Launched a call for young innovators to participate in a design sprint.
   • Organized a design sprint where teams developed and contextualized new business ideas and solutions.
   • Facilitated co-creation sessions and idea validation with potential customers.
4. Reflect and Outlook
   • Assessed the added value of the ideas generated.
   • Developed a multi-year program framework based on the insights and feedback from the design sprint.
   • Presented and refined the program proposal with stakeholders.

Results

The project led to several significant outcomes:

• Generated at least three youth-driven business ideas and contextualized solutions for the olive oil sector.
• Identified barriers such as seasonality of work, low technical skills, difficult working conditions, and entrepreneurial complexities.
• Developed recommendations to overcome these barriers, including promoting service provision across multiple crops, enhancing technical training, and improving working conditions.
• Proposed a multi-year program to support youth engagement, focusing on capacity building, financial support, stakeholder partnerships, and policy advocacy.

The project successfully highlighted the potential for youth to act as catalysts in transforming Morocco’s olive oil sector, ensuring sustainability and creating new economic opportunities.  

This project was commissioned by Centre for the Promotion of Imports from Developing Countries(CBI) and performed by Adil, a member of the Proportion Global community. If you’ve enjoyed reading this case and want to dive deeper, we’d love to hear from you and we will connect you with relevant designers like Adil, who worked on this project Contact Us