Education is the key to development in North Africa

RABAT // When the Moroccan web designer Younes Qassimi was in high school, he had a friend named Mohamed from a village near his home town of Agadir.

"I asked Mohamed what he would do after graduation," says Mr Qassimi, 27. "He told me, 'what do you think? I'll go back to my village and help my father on our farm'."

Mohamed's attitude reflects a conundrum still faced by youth across the Maghreb: while economies have grown and unemployment rates have fallen in recent years, it is still hard for young people to find a good job.

According to a report in June on Maghreb employment by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a not-for-profit international affairs think tank in Washington, unemployment among the educat