Discussion on the open data strategy of the High Authority with Moroccan actors

On 3 May 2018, upon request of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the High Authority received a delegation of 6 representatives from public authorities and civil society organizations of Morocco. In addition to Transparency International Morocco, the Moroccan institutions represented were the Ministry in charge of relations with the Parliament and civil society, the National Commission of public data protection, the Court of Auditors and the Ministry for the reform of the administration and civil service. This visit took place a few days only after the Kingdom of Morocco joined the Open Government Partnership (OGP), on 26 April 2018. Such membership was made possible thanks to the recent adoption of the Access to Information law in Morocco.

The visit of the delegation aimed at better knowing good practices in France with regard to transparency in the administration and public life and openness and reuse of public data. Their visit  thus allowed them to meet French actors involved in the implementation of the French national action plan in the framework of its participation to the OGP, such as the Court of Auditors, the Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (CNIL), the Etalab task force or the Access to administrative documents commission (CADA).

The discussions of 3 May allowed to recall briefly the missions of the high Authority and to present more precisely the data that are published by the institution, whether they are related to public officials falling within its scope or to lobbying, and the modalities of such publication. The presentation also stressed the different stages that led to the publication in an open data format, since July 2017, of data collected by the High Authority and its impact. This was also an occasion to discuss projects and orientations envisaged by the institution to go beyond the sole publication in open data and to, on the one hand, foster a better understanding of the data published using data-visualizations and, on the other hand, associate civil society to guarantee their reuse.

The discussions covered notably regulatory developments that facilitated the implementation of this strategy since 2015 but also the need to find balance between transparency and protection of public officials’ privacy. The topic of how civil society can reuse the data is also at the center of the preoccupations of the actors involved in Morocco, especially now in the context of drafting the national action plan of the Kingdom of Morocco in the framework of its participation to the OGP.