UntitledPolitical
Overview
Morocco remains one of the most compelling examples of democratic development in the Middle East and North Africa. The national legislative elections of 2002 highlighted important progress in the country's political transition, with equal access to public media for all political parties, a nationwide voter education campaign by the Ministry of Interior and domestic monitors observing elections for the first time. Municipal elections the following year were also widely perceived as transparent, even with some isolated reports of fraud.
The most remarkable shift in recent years has been women's increased status and strength in Moroccan society. The 2002 elections brought 35 women members to Parliament, increasing Morocco's ranking in Africa from one of the last to among the first in terms of women's political participation. In addition, a recent revision of the Moudawana, the country's personal status code, included new provisions codifying women's rights and supporting additional personal freedoms.
NDI is working to help consolidate these gains and to support Morocco's democratization through a variety of programs that promote interaction between citizens and their representatives, encourage women's political participation and raise ethical standards in governance. With training programs, outreach activities and collaborative initiatives, NDI works with a range of partners to strengthen the capacity of Parliament, political parties, civil society organizations and the media to reach out to the general public and better represent the full range of public interests.
Focus
Group Research
To promote a greater understanding of public opinion the Institute established the Rabat-based People's Mirror in 2003, the first focus group center of its kind in the Arab world to focus on democratic and social issues. Since then, NDI has conducted over 150 focus groups on topics ranging from public perceptions of Parliament and political parties to women in public life and attitudes on freedom of expression. The research has involved partnerships with a variety of Moroccan groups, including political parties, government ministries, and civil society organizations. Similarly, NDI has partnered with other international organizations working in Morocco to gauge public opinion. Recent programs have included research on educational materials sponsored by the British embassy discussing reforms to the country's personal status code and a UN-sponsored program on child labor issues.
Supporting Parliamentary Reform
NDI has built a long-standing partnership with the Parliament by helping to strengthen it as an institution through staff development, strategic communications, and other organizational programs At the same time, the Institute strives to help legislators be responsive and informed lawmakers and representatives by equipping members with meaningful tools for democratic decision-making and exposing them to effective practices from other countries. The Institute emphasizes skill development in areas such as caucus organization; coalition building; constituent outreach; media relations; bill drafting; and legislative debate.
With the introduction of new political party legislation in late 2004, NDI has partnered with a variety of parties in Parliament to organize member forums to promote debate and critical analysis of the law. One two-day forum drew nearly 200 representatives from four major parties and was featured on the national television station. The Institute has also developed a constituency outreach guide and sponsored pilot programs to promote town-hall style exchanges between members of Parliament and the citizens they represent.
Encouraging Women's
Political Participation
NDI supports the inclusion of all marginalized populations in public life and encourages gender equality in all of its programming. In an effort to demonstrate women's capacity to participate fully in Morocco's political life, NDI worked with the Democratic Association of Moroccan Women (ADFM) and the Seattle-based Center for Women and Democracy to train more than 120 potential candidates in campaign techniques prior to the 2002 legislative elections. The program focused on how to run a competitive campaign and target women voters to ensure that women's concerns are reflected in national politics. Through those elections, the number of women holding seats in Parliament leapt from just two to 35, one-third of whom participated in NDI's training programs.
NDI continues to support pioneering women in politics by offering technical assistance, hosting seminars and workshops and promoting networking for women MPs. Recently, the Institute organized an intensive set of training-of-trainers modules on public speaking for senior women representatives from 10 major political parties. Currently, NDI is working with several members of Parliament and the women's committee of the Francophone Parliamentary Association in creating a parliamentary women's caucus and promoting cooperative mechanisms that will increase women's voice in government.
Strengthening Political Parties
A critical component of NDI's work in Morocco is facilitating the exchange of experiences and ideas related to the role of political parties in a transitional democracy and enhancing party capacity to model democratic processes and better relate to public interests. Prior to the 2003 municipal elections, for example, NDI assisted political parties with workshops on campaign message development, and supported the parties with focus groups to test how well their new messages resonated with voters. Activities such as these are part of an effort to increase the effectiveness of parties by creating a political environment where citizens have more incentive to vote.
The Institute provides regular consultation with parties across the political spectrum, offering workshops, roundtables, resource materials and other capacity-building assistance. For example, NDI recently held a week-long academy for party activists that included trainings on conflict resolution techniques, enhanced communications, strategic planning and improved organization. To enhance the ability of party leaders to reach out to the public, NDI has sponsored workshops on public speaking and media relations. A recent NDI initiative is also helping to build bridges between parties and those they represent through nationwide focus groups on party-constituent communications outside campaign periods. Research in the five cities of Rabat, Fez, Agadir, Tangier and Oujda, has helped expand NDI's assistance to branch offices across the nation. In addition, NDI publishes a quarterly newsletter in Arabic, entitled The Foot Bridge, which shares ideas and experiences on issues of concern to political parties in Morocco.
Developing Independent Media
Over the past several years, the Institute has partnered with the Moroccan Press Union to equip the media with skills critical to their role as government watchdogs. The program has included a series of trainings for Moroccan journalists on unbiased, informative and timely coverage of elections and the principles of investigative journalism. Several of these workshops coincided with the publication of an election-reporting guide. Other trainings have focused on skill development for journalists covering parliamentary affairs and those writing for party newspapers.
Additionally, NDI worked with Freedom House, the Centre for Media Freedoms in the United Kingdom, and the Press Union to hold widely attended workshops on insult, defamation and freedom of expression laws, drawing on specialists from Canada, South Africa, Slovakia and the United States. Similarly, continued cooperation with the Press Union and Search for Common Ground led to a workshop on conflict resolution, addressing the media's role as a positive force in society by maintaining cohesion in the coverage of current events.
Enhancing Ethical Standards
In keeping with NDI's history of fighting corruption and promoting transparent government, the Institute helped lead an anti-corruption campaign prior to the 2003 municipal elections in partnership with the Center for Human Rights in Fez. The campaign centered on an audio drama aired on radio and distributed on cassette about a lower-income family confronting the issue of vote buying. Focus group research before and after the campaign demonstrated the program's effectiveness in reaching lower-income, less-educated segments of the population.
In a similar approach to using mass media, the Institute partnered with Ali N' Productions to sponsor a short-film competition on the theme of ethics. Participants drawn from university-level film programs competed to produce films that depicted how to expose, confront, and overcome corruption.
A different approach involved a cooperative strategy with the College of Inspectors General and the Ministry of Modernization of the Public Sector to design a code of conduct for civil servant and hold a three-day workshop on "Ethics in the Public Sector." Over 300 high-level civil servants and ministry staff attended the training, which was led by a United Nations public service officer, an American state ethics board director, and the director of the Center for African Administrative Development. The event later led the Ministry of Commerce to work with NDI on organizing further code-of-conduct trainings.
Contact Information
For more information on NDI's programs in Morocco, please contact:
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