Siham Azeroual

Siham Azeroual is an Amazigh activist and rural development consultant in Morocco. She founded the Moroccan Douars Association for Rural Development to change the way rural development is done, through a vision rooted in the territories themselves. Through her own projects and field missions with other organisations, she helps rural communities, mainly women in the Atlas Mountains, gain autonomy and learn to value the ancestral heritage they carry. She currently leads Tafssut Argania, the first action-research project comparing the contrasting micro-climates of Morocco's Arganeraie Biosphere Reserve, with a holistic approach that aims to build a genuine rural regenerative bioeconomy. Her work sits at the intersection of rural development that respects local cultures and one that values and preserves them, turning ancestral heritage into a driver of development without gentrification.