Person:
Touati, Anastasia

Social, Urban, Rural, and Resilience Global Practice
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Urban development, Urban planning, Urban transportation, Municipal management
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0000-0002-6489-8388
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Social, Urban, Rural, and Resilience Global Practice
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Last updated: January 31, 2023
Biography
Anastasia Touati is an Urban Specialist in the Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience Global Practice. She leads and contribute to territorial development lending and analytical projects in Tunisia, Morocco and at a global level more broadly. Her focus areas currently are urban and transportation planning, municipal management, intergovernmental fiscal systems and municipal finance and urban economics applied to operational urban planning. She graduated as a civil and transportation engineer from the École Nationale des Travaux Publics de l’Etat and holds a PhD in Urban and Regional Studies from the Ecole des Ponts Paris Tech. Prior to joining the WB, she worked for seven years for the French Ministry of Territorial Development, Transport and Energy where she led research and operational programs on urban and transportation planning (compact city policies, post-suburban development, local governance of energy transition). She also worked for the Inter American Development Bank leading and contributing to development projects in Haiti (land tenure security, local economic development around industrial zones, sustainable tourism). As part of her research activities, she has also worked on urban and housing development in Latin America (Chile, Colombia and Peru).

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    Leveraging Urbanization to Promote a New Growth Model While Reducing Territorial Disparities in Morocco: Urban and Regional Development Policy Note
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2019-06-14) Lall, Somik; Mahgoub, Ayah; Maria, Augustin; Touati, Anastasia; Acero, Jose Luis
    Today 60 percent of Moroccans reside in urban areas, as opposed to 35 percent in 1970. By 2050, nearly three-quarters of the country’s population will be living in cities. Along with the concentration of people, urbanization will lead to the increasing concentration of economic activities in cities, which today are estimated to account for about 75 percent of the country’s GDP and 70 percent of investments at the national level. To accompany these transformations, the Moroccan government has adopted, in recent years, ambitious programs to improve living standards in urban and rural areas. Significant improvements in living standards have been achieved through national master plans. Cities are the engines of today’s demographic and economic growth in Morocco, but they also face persistent challenges. Despite substantial public investments and strong potential for cities to absorb rural poverty, important pockets of urban poverty remain. Spatial disparities are a major cause for concern both for citizens as well as for national and local governments. In addition, Moroccan cities are not delivering on their full potential. Urbanization has not generated the same growth benefits in Morocco as it has in many other countries with similar contexts. These patterns suggest that Morocco needs specific policies to improve returns from its urbanization process. The main message of this note is that urbanization and spatial equity are not competing objectives when urbanization is supported and managed well. Well-managed urbanization allows for economies of scale in the provision of services and the development of more efficient labor. This note identifies priority actions to be taken at national, regional, and local levels to allow public authorities to act within a coherent framework and to help urban development to boost economic growth and promote shared prosperity for all.