Experts

Fathallah Oualalou is an economist, Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South. 

He obtained his PhD in economics from the University of Paris in 1968. Prior to joining the Policy Center for the New South, he served as a professor at Mohammed V University in Rabat and other higher education institutions in Morocco, and as an associate professor at several foreign universities. He is the author of numerous books and articles in the fields of economic theory, financial economics, international economic relations, the economies of Maghreb countries, the Arab world, and the Euro-Mediterranean area. In addition, he was the president of the Association of Moroccan Economists at the Union of Arab Economists.

His political activism began with the creation, in the 1960s, of the USFP - formerly UNFP, where he held multiple leadership positions until 2015. During his studies, he was President of the National Union of Moroccan Students (UNEM) and was among the leaders of the Confederation of Maghrebi Students. Also, he was founding member of the Moroccan Association for Solidarity with the Palestinian People and held leadership roles in the National Union of Higher Education. Since 1976, he was elected on multiple occasions to the Rabat City Council and since 1977 to the Moroccan Parliament. From 1984 to 1998, he served as a parliamentary leader in the Chamber of Deputies. He later was appointed as Minister of Economy and Finance from March 1998 to October 2007, and then elected as the Mayor of Rabat from 2009 to 2015. Apart from this, he served as treasurer of the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) - an organization that represents and defends the interests of local governments at the global level.