Bassima Hakkaoui

"The ministry wants to empower women in an area where they have seen modest influence, female entrepreneurs in Morocco are self-reliant and don’t enjoy what women in other fields benefit from"

"the field of entrepreneurship is a desert where men grow without women, until we reached a level we cannot be proud of"

"We have a security fund to support women’s entrepreneurship, which has provided 236 women with loans amounted to 81 million dirhams ($8 million)"

"Society is demanding greater rights for women, while there are some men in positions of power who have a problem sharing this political power with women"

"With respect to womens affairs, the first thing we have to do is hammer out a clear vision if we are going to properly improve the situation and lives of women in Morocco and empower female elites to realise their intellectual, economic and also their political potential"

"My inclusion as a woman could be viewed as a result of negotiations and the pressure that the parties felt themselves to be under – although by this I mean primarily time pressure, particularly during the last round of negotiations. Some of the ministers were also assigned different portfolios. In this regard I would like to say that politics certainly requires a solid political education"