Field Train Students, CSOs & Officials in Morocco

In the past quarter, the High Atlas Foundation’s team has launched Legal Aid Program (LAP) to support democratic participation of CSO leaders and activists in advocacy strategies and increase their role in creating change. This new program will also enable addressing structural impediments that were identified the previous rounds of training especially relating to land ownership and inclusive participation in creating Municipal Development Plans.

The quarter was dedicated to communication about the program and the mobilization of partners. Thus, we held several meetings with the relevant local authorities, directors of youth centers, and elected officials and communal leaders in the different communes of Mohammedia to present the program as well as explain goal and objectives.

Additionally, program staff identified and confirmed participants in the workshops and LAP: law students, civil society organization (CSO) members, activists and community leaders. The project team recruited CSO members for their commitment to advocate for policy change and reforms, their capacity to address local needs, and their desire to design and manage campaigns using a participatory approach. HAF’s team also recruited law students from the Faculty to benefit from the capacity building program and later to provide legal counsel, under professional supervision, to the CSO members involved in the workshops.

In order to measure the knowledge regarding legal framework for advocacy based on Morocco’s newly revised constitution and laws, and to understand local development issues, the team conducted a survey among the program beneficiaries. The survey gathered information on the organizations’ assessment of their current advocacy efforts and watchdog functions as well as current legal barriers, and their needs in terms of legal services.

To meet the outlined objectives and achieve the overall goal of advancing democracy through participation in sustainable development projects, the first quarter involved the implementation of six-month workshops preceding the legal service provisioning phase. The objective of these “Participatory Planning and Development Workshops” is threefold:

1. To equip the participants with the ability to identify barriers to advancing their change and development goals
2. To conceptualize positive change
3. To present participatory tools to help analyze economic, environmental, political, and social conditions and opportunities.

106 CSO activists, communal leaders and students attended three workshops held during the quarter.

• The first workshop was dedicated to the presentation of the Legal Aid Program, its goal and objectives and to assessing the level of knowledge and expectations of the participants regarding legal services.

• The second workshop was titled “Techniques and Tools to Identify the Challenges and Obstacles to Realize Change and Concretize Local Development Initiatives”. The workshop included a discussion of the concept of change management and the treatment of modifications of laws to which associations aspire. It also taught techniques to identify obstacles that prevent associations from concretizing their initiatives.

• The third workshop was related to the association’s self-assessment. The participants learned the concept, importance and types of self-assessment, and gained the skills to conduct the process of self-assessment and as a result to determine the strengths and the functional areas that require support.

In early 2011, amid large public demonstrations, regional political unrest, and dramatic changes in neighboring states, Morocco initiated a series of reforms to strengthen human rights, democracy, good governance, and economic transparency. The centerpiece was a revision of Morocco’s constitution. The new constitution aims to strengthen the legislature, and judiciary; to promote human rights, women’s equality, and Amazigh cultural rights; and to encourage decentralization.

Despite Morocco’s newly revised constitution and the Government’s commitment to policy reforms for democracy and sustainable development, the degree to which the new constitution represents a significant change depends on the details of constitutional implementation, the degree to which CSOs and political parties effectively leverage the political space and roles accorded to them, and whether they have the capacity and ability to effectively contribute to a genuine democracy.

Participatory research assessments conducted with 140 activists and leaders from 94 CSOs in two urban communes (Mohammedia and Ain Harrouda and four rural communes (Beni Yekhlef, Sidi Moussa Ben Ali, Sidi Moussa Lmajdoub and Chellalat) in the Mohammedia province (conducted in 2012 and 2013 by 130 university students with three members of HAF’s project team), highlight the areas in which there is a need to address the structural challenges, including:1) the lack of full participation in creating Communal Development Plans, 2) the absence of knowledge surrounding the legal framework to advocate for policy reforms, 3) lack of good governance practices within CSOs which is impacting their credibility with their constituents and partners, 4) the lack of capacity to develop effective advocacy strategies and attract funding and support.

The High Atlas Foundation will partner with the National Endowment for Democracy to meet the critical need for the provision of legal services for civil society organizations (CSOs) and marginalized communities and groups, particularly women and youth.

The project will create a sustainable legal aid program (LAP) at the Faculty of Law, Economic and Social Sciences (Faculty) at Hassan II University in Mohammedia, located between Rabat and Casablanca.The participants of a nine month experiential skills-building program will include: a) 20 CSO activists and communal leaders from the Province who will be equipped with legal knowledge, analytic skills, and capacity to plan and manage participatory advocacy strategies leading to legal and political reforms and b) 20 law students who will build their applied skills through providing (with professional supervision) legal counseling and assistance for CSO activists and communities from 6 communes in the Province of Mohammedia.

The project will be done in three phases. The first phase will be coordinating the program, preparing materials, and identifying students, CSO activists and community leaders. After completing phase one participatory planning workshops and legal services will be provided to the students invited to the workshops. The final phase will focus on the implementation of advocacy strategies to address challenges and issues identified over the course of the workshops and post project surveys will be conducted during this phase.