Relative to the TI index, it isn't so much decreasing tolerance to corruption which bothers me(it is a Good Thing as long as one keeps in mind that practice and theory always have discrepancies and real life takes time and efforts to adjust towards a Better Thing), but the fact that it's extremely subjective in its inception.

As for where you could leverage those grants, I have no idea how they'll reach the shores of Barbary, but in very broad general terms, the first thing that comes to mind for the Maghreb is outsourcing. North Africa could be to Europe, esp. its francophone part, what China or India are to the US.

About the TI ranking, might it not simply be that other nations positioned around Morocco in the table have cleaned up faster? Since I guess Morocco is stuck with most other developing nations, in a corrupt cluster, some small improvements on the part of similar states could throw Morocco far back in the table even if it is objectively improving. (Like how the US recently dropped 30 spaces or so in some press freedom ranking, b/c of some minor legal dispute, just because the margins are so tight up at the top.)

Or maybe there's a fixed score too. Too lazy to check.

Ah mate, the grants are all investment in infrastructure re agribiz and the like. Nothing direct, but perhaps biofuels or something interesting like that.

As Lounsbury wrote, these corruption perception indexes are not scientific, and could never be. I wouldn't know myself if corruption has risen or fallen the last ten years. On the daily level, I'd say it has stayed the same or risen. On the business deals level, I think that the dramatic growth of freedom of expression the last decade has made the risk of discovery and public outcry a dampening factor, but this is only my feeling.

As for the MCC, don't forget the USA/EU competition in Morocco: the European Commission disbursed 265 million euros in grants to Morocco last year alone, and Morocco is due to get 165 million euros per year over the 2007-2013 period (incredibly enough, Morocco was last year's third EU development aid beneficiary in the world, after Bosnia and Turkey). To that you should add what the Member States are doling out, especially France, Spain and Germany. The US is merely trying to catch up...

On the corruption front, Morocco has slipped to 79th out of 163 nations on Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index, from 45th out of 100 nations in 1999.

Uhhh, this statistic does not say that Morocco has become more corrupt. In fact, without more, it says that corruption in Morocco is unchanged relative to other countries.

In 1999, Morocco ranked 45th out of 100 countries, i.e, in the top 45 percent. Now, it ranks 79th out of 163 countries i.e., in the top 48 percent.

Right, something of a stupid conceptual mischaracterisation by me.

I suppose my gut reaction is driven by the relative standings, where taking relative ranking, I just don't feel it....

But then I am mistaking personal experience for overall.

Actually, not really your fault at all. It's the FT that talks about how Morocco has "slipped." Pity we can't e-mail Andrew England -- or better yet, his editor -- and suggest that they leave the analysis to the statistically literate, no matter how much they think their random factoids spice up a story.

Honestly, I expect this crap from most media outlets but I hope for better from places like the FT.

Anyway, it's quite likely that your personal observations are dead spot on. I think there is reason to believe that corruption, especially petty corruption, is decreasing worldwide. It's quite possible that Morocco is less corrupt than it was ten years ago. In any event, that statistic doesn't really offer evidence one way or the other.