"It is necessary to undertake a reform of the health and labour safety system at work based on a global vision and not on sporadic initiatives or actions", he said during a virtual workshop, dedicated to the presentation of the Council’s report "Health and safety at work: essential support for economic and social development".

Risks in the workplace concern everyone, he pointed out, stressing that these can result either in work accidents or in the development of so-called occupational diseases.

"There is a need to increase our efforts to remedy the shortcomings and advance health and safety standards in our country," Chami underlined.

He said, in this regard, that in Morocco, around 2,000 deaths per year are linked to work accidents according to the International Labor Organization, one of the highest figures in the Middle East and North Africa region.

The CESE has carried out a study on the issue of health and safety at work. This study concerns both the public and private sectors with their various components, in particular very small businesses, the agricultural sector and the informal sector.

The diagnosis carried out by the Council reveals that Morocco has made significant progress in the field of health and safety at work. These include the preparation of the draft framework law on health and safety at work, the creation of the National Institute for working conditions and the development of the national policy and the national health and labour safety program for the period 2020-2024.

Despite these initiatives, major shortcomings persist, according to the CESE. These result, among other things, in a limited implementation of health and safety rules in the private sector, a non-inclusion of the system in the public sector and a lack of specialized skills.

The CESE also reports the problem of governance of the health and labour safety system, the dispersion of responsibility for health and safety management between several actors, the limits of national legislation in the face of international standards and a weak social protection.

The Council has formulated a vision and some thirty recommendations aimed at promoting health and safety at work and at making workplaces safer.

The CESE recommend the creation of a national health and labour safety agency, with the mission of developing and implementing the national policy on health and safety at work.

The Council also underlines the importance of creating a national observatory of specialized occupational risks, in addition to setting up centers dedicated to occupational medicine.