Othman El Ferdaous, Morocco 2021: Resilience and Digitization

Morocco’s Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport had given an overview of the year 2020 and described it as a rough year for professionals and small entrepreneurs in domains of Culture, Cinema, Youth and Sport, and Media.

He further explained that in order to scaffold these professionals and alleviate the budget of corporate treasury, the economic Vigilance Committee has approved four project contracts in favor of cultural and creative industries, sport halls, Nurseries and written media.

He further added that employees within these four industries who are declared in the National Social Security Fund and who are temporarily out of work will benefit from a financial aid. Concerning the corporate treasury, the minister said that the aids will be in the form of forfeiting payments, postponing it or delaying deadlines as well as delaying the payments of bank loans.

Concerning written media, the minister stressed that it’s worth mentioning that this program contract is an added value to the press support strategy which is going to replace the exceptional aid initiative of 2021 that constitutes of 235M MAD in the year 2020.

Concerning Cultural and Creative industries, the minister announced that a cell will be established for assisting entrepreneurs in creating applications to contribute in the “Intilaqa” program (start-up) in addition to creating tools for investments to cope with certain projects.

According to the recommendations of 2019 debate, a workshop for statistical qualifications has been set up. The opening of the requests of proposals of this strategic study will hold place on February, 18^th; on its part, the private sector will also contribute in the works of the strategic study.

The Economic, Social and Environmental Council has recommended the development of a national cultural and digital proposal. Thus, a digital platform for intangible heritage, performing arts and festivals will be established. Furthermore, a program for supporting music album distribution services over social platforms such as Spotify will be created.

Concerning sport, the ministry picked up the idea proposed by Mustapha Rachid among 168 ideas proposed last August #fikraryadia (sport idea). The idea consists of establishing an electronic platform for the benefit of sport academies. GIZ association has endorsed the project for financing and follow up.

The four program contracts are characterized by the new digital mode which is the base of the Ministry’s yearly strategic plan.