Written by Mouad Agouzoul, under the supervision of Professor Ahmed Azirar, Director of Research at IMIS and with the participation of Karim Amor and Victor Pauvert, this innovative document deals with digital sovereignty and how the Kingdom should progressively build and manage this strategic tool on the long term.

According to a press release by IMIS, this Policy Paper introduces the notion of Critical Digital Assets, with the goal of gradually achieving digital autonomy.

The objective highlighted by the institute's experts is identifying the strategic fields which will lead to the building of a solid foundation for a sovereign and pragmatic digital policy, while keeping in mind the realities on the ground and the capital limitations that Morocco faces.

“Although digital sovereignty suffers from the absence of a real definition agreed upon by all experts, the authors of this Policy Paper attempt to bring the specific analytical prism of this concept to bear on public initiatives," stresses the press release.

The document also proposes to complement and extend the work undertaken by the public authorities to accelerate Morocco's modernization and digitalization dynamic, including the “Digital Morocco 2030” strategy and the national strategy for artificial intelligence.

In the face of the urgent need to strengthen Morocco's digital sovereignty, the authors explore and list the critical areas to be enhanced in the digital sovereignty strategy and aim, through this analysis, to map critical interests, key digital protagonists and how the Moroccan ecosystem can generate a cyberforce capable to act in the ongoing cyberwar to preserve the country's vital interests.

Against this backdrop of increasing globalization of digital activities, this Policy Paper proposes a number of pragmatic recommendations for the public and private sectors, as well as an implementation roadmap and a governance model, taking into account the prospects for co-development and collaboration on the African continent and in South-South-North relations.

The document can be accessed through the following link: "https://imis.ma/wp content/uploads/2024/05/IMIS_SouveraineteNumerique_VF.pdf".

IMIS is a think-tank specializing in the study of Morocco's strategic challenges, with several reference works on the Kingdom to its credit, including "A Moroccan path: 1999-2019 Journey of a Kingdom in Transformation", "Strategic Morocco", "A Moroccan Ambition".