e-Parliament for Participatory Democracy (MO0050)

What is public issue in response to which this commitment was made? As in other national parliaments, the House of Representatives, which has been engaged since 2014 in a continuous process of digital transition, faces challenges of an informational and communicative nature.

What are the components of this commitment? The e-Parliament project initiated by the House of Representatives is aimed at: • Providing real-time credible information; • Reducing paper-based documentation (achieved a reduction rate of 80%); • Modernizing parliamentary work processes; • Consolidating participatory democracy; • Enhancing transparency. This digital project was reflected, in part, by the revamping of the website in January 2020 and the launch of a set of interactive applications/platforms to collect citizens’ opinions and comments. A platform has already been developed for the transfer of documents between the House of Representatives, the House of Councilors, and the Government (Government and parliamentary bills, minutes and reports of meetings, amendments, reports of committees...). In addition, a range of dedicated mobile applications and web platforms shall be developed, including: • An application dedicated to the promotion of participatory democracy (petitions and motions on legislation); • An application for the evaluation of public policies with a special database; • An interactive application between Representatives and the population in their local or regional constituencies; • Development of a database for parliamentarians and officials in charge of public policy evaluation.

How will this commitment contribute to solving the public issue? The digital transition of the House of Representatives shall facilitate the provision of information from credible sources to citizens, consolidate the openness of the institution, contribution to the Kingdom of Morocco’s efforts and commitments in environmental and ecological matters, add to the modernization of the processes of parliamentary action, and consolidate of participatory democracy.

How is this commitment relevant to the OGP values? The commitment would bring information about closer to citizens and strengthen the openness, transparency, credibility, effectiveness, and efficiency of the House of Representatives, hence consolidating trust in institutions.

Additional information • The House provides reference documents and pages to interact with the Representatives online; • Plenary sittings’ debates in the House of Representatives are broadcast online and in real time on its official website and on social media platforms; • The sittings for oral questions to the Government and the ones devoted to the discussion of the Finance Bill are broadcast live on public television and radio; • The House of Representatives provides videos on the legislative process, institutional actors, parliamentary diplomacy, and follow-up and evaluation of public policies online (in five languages).

Key activities with deliverable and measurable results | Start date - End date

Development of an application dedicated to participatory democracy (petitions and motions on legislation) | 2022 (Action that covers the entire legislative term)

Development of an application dedicated to public policy evaluation | 2022

Development of an application that enables interaction between the Representatives and population in their local or regional constituencies. | 2022