Communicating at a Large Scale About Morocco’S Joining the OGP and its Progress in Terms of Open Government (MO0018)

Communicating at a large scale about Morocco’s joining the OGP and its progress in terms of Open Government
September 2018 – August 2020
Lead implementing agency/actor
Ministry of Administration Reform and Civil Service (MRAFP)
Commitment description
What is the public problem that the commitment will address?
Morocco recently joined the Open Government Partnership (OGP). This partnership seeks to accelerate the advancement of the values of transparency, accountability, and citizen participation. However, Morocco’s joining the OGP has not been extensively communicated, which may be viewed as a missed opportunity to create a culture of greater openness and sharing.
What is the commitment?
This commitment consists of developing and implementing a communication plan to support Morocco’s joining of the OGP and the implementation of its commitments in terms of Open Government.
How will the commitment contribute to solve the public problem?
This commitment serves as a decisive support measure for successfully implementing the Open Government National Action Plan.
Why is this commitment relevant to OGP values?
Raising awareness of the general public about Morocco’s OGP commitments will be an instrument for pressuring and recognizing the commitment holders to help them succeed in their missions. This will have a positive impact on the quality of the OGP deliverables.
Additional information Related commitments: all commitments
Milestone Activity with a verifiable deliverable
Development of a communication plan about Open Government
September 2018 October 2018
Implementation of the communication plan
October 2018 December 2019
Assessment of the communications actions carried out
January 2020 June 2020
Contact information for the focal point
Name of the focal point (Project manager)
Ms Amal ALAMI
Title and department
Head of Communication Division, Ministry of Adminsitration Reform and Civil Service
Email and telephone
+212 5 37 67 98 46 / a.alami@mmsp.gov.ma
Other actors involved
Government departments
Civil society

Commitment 18: OGP Membership and Progress Communication Plan

Language of the commitment as it appears in the action plan:

"This commitment consists of developing and implementing a communication plan to support Morocco’s joining of the OGP and the implementation of its commitments in terms of Open Government.

This commitment serves as a decisive support measure for successfully implementing the Open Government National Action Plan.

Raising awareness of the general public about Morocco’s OGP commitments will be an instrument for pressuring and recognizing the commitment holders to help them succeed in their missions. This will have a positive impact on the quality of the OGP deliverables."

Milestones:

• Development of a communication plan about Open Government
• Implementation of the communication plan
• Assessment of the communications actions carried out"

Start Date: September 2018

End Date:  August 2020

Editorial Note: the commitment description provided above is an abridged version of the commitment text, please see the full action plan here: https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/morocco-action-plan-2018-2020/

Context and objectives

Morocco joined OGP in 2018 and subsequently drafted its first national action plan. The government of Morocco hosted a conference in 2019 to introduce and celebrate the country's OGP membership. However, the government has undertaken limited public outreach about Morocco's OGP membership and commitments beyond the conference. [169]

In regard to public information on OGP, the Department of Reform and Administration within the Ministry of Economy, Finance, and Administrative Reform maintains Morocco's OGP repository: http://www.gouvernement-ouvert.ma. The website is comprehensive and contains updates and evidence of commitment implementation progress as well as Steering Committee meeting minutes. The government also issues press releases related to OGP updates and commitment progress.

Importantly, the current action plan seeks to strengthen and implement democratic reforms set out in the 2011 constitution. The action plan includes tangible commitments in areas long championed by civil society, such as access to information and participatory democracy. Communicating Morocco's OGP activities to the wider public is essential to (i) ensuring broad participation in future action plan design and implementation, (ii) demonstrating the governments' ongoing commitment to open government values, (iii) highlighting lessons learned and achievements as an example to other member countries and OGP Local members. Abderrahim Foukahi, from the CSO REMDI, shares that the OGP membership has played a role in pacifying tensions between the government and CSOs. ^[170] Therefore, increasing engagement and communication around national OGP processes may serve to further strengthen relations and trust between civil society and the government.

This commitment is relevant to the OGP value of access to information but is not specific enough to be verifiable. The verifiability of this commitment is limited, as the milestones proposed do not provide detailed information on the communication plan, or its extent. The commitment does not speak about the rural component or the use of technology to implement the communication plan. Also, the commitment does not set verifiable numbers concerning the extent of communication desired, and its reach. Due to this commitment’s limited ambition and lack of specificity, it is considered to have a minor potential impact.

18. OGP Membership and Progress Communication Plan

Substantial:

This commitment consisted of developing and implementing a communication plan to support Morocco’s OGP membership and the implementation of its commitments in terms of Open Government. [196] It aimed to raise public awareness about Morocco’s OGP commitments. [197]

The Department of Administrative Reform of the Ministry of Economy, Finance, and Administrative Reform launched Morocco’s Open Government Portal http://www.gouvernement-ouvert.ma, which provides information on Morocco’s OGP efforts and development and implementation of the action plans. According to the self-assessment, [198] the Department established a visual identity for all publicity materials on open government in Morocco, published a video on open government, [199] adopted the hashtag #opengovmorocco for social media use, published and distributed informational materials, carried out a digital awareness-raising campaign, organized 12 webinars with civil society and events with government representatives at the regional level, and held an international conference Morocco-OECD. [200] According to the self-assessment, [201] these efforts resulted in an increase in visits to Morocco’s Open Government Portal, from 2,094 in December 2018, to 16,715 in December 2020, as well as 107 cases of media coverage, 73 news publications on the portal before December 2020, and 115 uses of the #opengovmorocco hashtag up until December 2020. The average reach per government-sponsored open government post was 120,000. [202] This contributed to higher participation in the co-creation process for Morocco’s second OGP action plan, reaching 804 participants. [203]

Some civil society actors pointed out several shortcomings in the Open Government Portal. Sabrina Nassih from the Green Youth, [204] which is not part of the multi-stakeholder forum, pointed at the fact that the documents on implementation could not be found on each commitment’s page, but are published in chronological order in the general Documents and News sections. Houdna Bennani [205] and Ahmed Bernoussi, [206] members of the multi-stakeholder forum, pointed out that the progress percentages for implementation of the different commitments displayed on the portal are difficult to grasp and verify, because of the lack of direct evidence and of the unclear implementation criteria.

Another challenge for awareness-raising on open government is communication in rural areas, where digital outreach is limited, as explained in the previous commitment. In the IRM researcher’s experience, communication efforts on open government and on the cocreation and implementation of the OGP action plans require further efforts. To illustrate this, very few of the civil society actors interviewed for this report knew that the action plan had been expanded in 2019, with six commitments by the Lower House, and none of the interviewees had a clear idea what the House’s efforts are.