Held under the High Patronage of His Majesty the King on the theme “Advanced regionalization: meeting today's and tomorrow's challenges”, this edition is an opportunity to explore growth approaches likely to enhance the correlation between development needs, effective territorial planning and performance in the exercise of regional powers.
Furthermore, it provides an opportunity to conduct collective and participative assessment of progress of the implementation of this project's multiple components, notably with regard to implementing the first conference's recommendations, held in 2019, while identifying the requirements for concretizing a progressive execution of this process.
The first edition was crowned by the adoption and signature of the Regulatory Framework for operationalizing the Region's own and shared powers. In order to implement the commitments made by the signatory parties of this Framework, a roadmap was adopted, enabling the Region to appropriate, in the short and medium term, its own and shared prerogatives.
While the strategic dimension of the advanced regionalization project unquestionably calls for greater involvement of all players, as part of a constructive dialogue based on progressiveness and continuous improvement in the optimal implementation of this Royal project to meet citizens' expectations, this objective cannot be achieved without promoting participatory democracy and putting in place support mechanisms required for the effective operationalization of the Region's prerogatives.
In this context, three types of challenges have been identified. The first is strategic and functional, linked in particular to the effective exercise of own and shared powers, the efficiency of the convergence between decentralization and administrative devolution, and the promotion of regional attractiveness.
The second challenge is topical and operational, linked to the need to take on certain changes that require enshrining participative democracy in order to meet challenges associated with three priority fields of competence, namely the issue of safeguarding water resources, in particular the question of water stress, transport and territorial mobility system, and digital transformation within local authorities.
The final cross-cutting challenge relates to the regions' ability to develop and innovate financing mechanisms able to meet funding requirements of regional development programs.
Similarly to the first conference, this 2nd edition aims to achieve a number of objectives, notably the promotion of collective interaction between concerned players on issues of common interest linked to implementing the advanced regionalization project, sharing the results of the evaluation of implementing advanced regionalization among all stakeholders after nine years of practice, as well as highlighting the achievements to be made and the limitations to be managed. It also strives to underline best practices and successful experiences, especially those relating to structuring projects, in addition to issuing practical, realistic and achievable recommendations in response to the challenges identified.
The two-day event, organized by the Ministry of the Interior in partnership with the Association of Moroccan Regions, will focus on six sessions.
The first will highlight the challenges of operationalizing regional pejoratives to promote the attractiveness of territories; the second on the convergence between decentralization and administrative devolution -an essential requirement for promoting productive investment-, while the third will address challenges of financing regional investment programs.
In turn, the fourth session will focus on securing water supply in the context of water stress, current challenges and prospects; the fifth will tackle developing sustainable transport and mobility systems, challenges and prospects, while the sixth session will deal with digital transformation within local authorities: a lever for enshrining territorial governance and strengthening citizen participation.