Rabat – Morocco’s Special Commission on the Development Model (CSMD) has launched a website, csmd.ma, to welcome feedback from Moroccans at home and in the diaspora community.
Citizens can offer their proposals for Morocco’s development model by logging into the long-awaited website, promised in December 2019.
Available in both Arabic and French, the website has three portals for citizens to offer their contributions on different subjects: Specific proposals related to their region, reactions to the COVID-19 measures, and general advice on the country’s development model.
Since Morocco began recording cases of COVID-19 and developed its own small clusters of outbreaks, the CSMD had to suspend all of its scheduled consultations with the public.
With its website up and running, the commission will be able to continue “listening sessions” to collect proposals from all citizens “for a participatory and inclusive development model,” Maghreb Arab Press reported.
The commission, which serves as an advisory panel to the Moroccan government, began consultations on January 2. The commission started with political parties and began “citizen meetings” with the public in Larache, near Tangier, on February 15.
Interested citizens can review the proposals of political parties, Moroccan think tanks, and various experts on the website.
After calling for a new development model for years and announcing the special commission on July 30 last year, King Mohammed VI moved forward and appointed Moroccan Ambassador to France Chakib Benmoussa as chairman of the commission in November 2019.
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In his speech on Throne Day in 2019, the King said, “I expect the committee to be totally impartial and objective, and to report on facts as they are on the ground, however harsh or painful they may be. And when proposing solutions, I want it to be daring and innovative.’’
King Mohammed VI had long criticized the previous development model, saying in 2017, “We have to admit that our national development model no longer responds to citizens’ growing demands and pressing needs.”
