Increase Opportunities for Citizens to Visit the Legislature (MO0022)

What is the public problem that the commitment will address?
Citizens do not trust public institutions, including the parliament. They do
have the feeling that the laws as they are voted today by the parliament do
not express the real general will of the people. Citizens do have the
impression that their representatives do not care about what they think, and
that they do not represent them properly. Besides, the amalgam created by
the social media and the media in general contribute to the youth’s
displeasure and poor opinion about the parliament and the elected officials.
Implementation of an ambitious and broadly rich communication plan which
targets the youth in particular, via a physical openness approach while
upholding relevant and appropriate content and discourse as disseminated
by various means of communication.
Integrating with success the increasing number of youth in the democratic
process that Morocco has embarked on poses many challenges, but equally
represents great opportunities.
Up to date, however, many young people find out themselves on the
margins of the political process, as they are very often called upon to
reclaim social and political change.
In order to become truly inclusive and representative, parliaments should
spare no effort in order to open their institution, so that the ideas and needs
of the youth be harnessed in a democratic manner.
 Increase the number of visitors of the House of Representatives, by
reinforcing the staff capacity in the organization and facilitated access
of visitors, through setting up units of public relations in order to
oversee and facilitate the access of the public to the headquarters of the
parliament.
 Increase substantially the number of groups’ facilitated visits, namely
groups of pupils from both the primary, junior and high schools as well
as students from colleges and universities beyond the close
neighborhood of the capital Rabat.
 Create a space for the historical memory of the parliament of Morocco,
which reminds the young generations of the parliamentary group as
imbricated in its national context.
 Diversify the dissemination of contents that are meant to bring the
public closer to the parliament’s life, parliament’s debates, new
legislation, parliament’s initiatives, through the publications, the
Parliament’s channel, as well as the social media of the House of
Representatives.
 Elaborate communication toolkits (the booklets) designed for the
children and for the youth and organize meetings/debates at the
regional level (within the framework of the mobile parliament).

How shall the commitment contribute to solving the public problem?
Encourage the citizen participation among the future generations and foster
citizen participation among future generations while countering the general
anti-parliamentarianism trend.

Why is this commitment relevant to OGP values?
Encourage participation, as well as awareness of the stakes related to voting
and to democracy, and by the same token foster the citizen-based control
and oversight over public action.

22. Opening onto the public, namely onto the youth in order to make parliamentary endeavors better known (Commitments of the Lower House of the Parliament of Morocco)

Limited:

This commitment is the fourth of the commitments added to the action plan by the Lower House, one of the two chambers of Morocco’s parliament. [238] The House aimed to encourage citizen participation among youth while countering the general trend toward anti-parliamentarianism and low trust in Parliament. [239] The commitment focuses on engaging young people through awareness-raising, setting up a space for the historical memory of the Moroccan Parliament, organizing meetings with youth, and creating a parliamentary TV channel. [240]

Mohammed Doukha, General Councilor in the House, [241] explained that, so far, the space for the historical memory of the Moroccan Parliament has been set up. One exhibition has been held, which groups of young people could visit; however, it was closed due to COVID-19. He added that the House prepared and published several videos in Arabic, and that their translation into other languages will soon follow. These are the videos published by the House in late July 2021, on legislative procedure, [242] institutional actors, [243] parliamentary diplomacy, [244] and monitoring and evaluating public policies. [245] Thus, this awareness-raising activity overlaps with the House’s commitment on petitions and motions (see commitment 19 in this report). Doukha also explained that some work on the management of the parliamentary channel was done in July 2020—the House voted on a bill to establish a public enterprise to manage the parliamentary channel and submitted it to the Second Chamber for adoption—but the channel has still not been launched. [246] However, as mentioned under the previous commitment, House plenary sessions and committee meetings are streamed online and published as videos on Parliament’s YouTube channel [247] and on the House website. [248] According to Doukha, the regional and national meetings with youth were postponed due to the pandemic. [249]