Launching of the sixth « Mercredis de Racines » tour … on Saturdays!

There it goes again! From 24 February until 30 June 2018, Racines and its partners organize, within the framework of the sixth « Mercredis de Racines » tour, the « Etats Régionaux de la Culture » in Beni Mellal, Rabat, Tangier, Azrou, Laayoune, Tiznit, Tinghir, Oujda, Casablanca and Safi.

There it goes again! From 24 February until 30 June 2018, Racines and its partners organize, within the framework of the sixth « Mercredis de Racines » tour, the « Etats Régionaux de la Culture » in Beni Mellal, Rabat, Tangier, Azrou, Laayoune, Tiznit, Tinghir, Oujda, Casablanca and Safi.

This tour in the 12 regions of Morocco aims at analyzing and evaluating cultural policy implemented by the municipalities and regional councils. The first session will take place on Saturday 24 February 2018 in Beni Mellal.

Since the commitment of Morocco to regionalization in 2010, the roles of the Regional Councils for economic, social, cultural and environmental development has been more and more reinforced, as outlined in the report of the Consultative Commission on Regionalization.

The reinforcement concerns both the action and initiative capacity of the regions and the increase of their own competences and resources. The expertise will be shared between the state and territorial authorities which will be consulted by the government for national and regional development strategies, cultural strategy included.

The Regional Council will have to draft, adopt and implement a development plan for its region, promote international cooperation for the development and ensure the cultural influence of the region. The State is committing to transfer more financial resources.

The “Etats Régionaux de la Culture” are part of this regionalization process. They aim at doing a diagnosis of the cultural sector, realizing and mapping out the inventory of the artistic structures, analyzing the situation of the cultural policy in regions, suggesting practical and efficient recommendations for the implementation of cultural policy adapted to each region, in accordance with the advanced regionalization objectives and the Regional Councils’ prerogatives.

In each region, a one-day program will be organized in partnership with a local civil society organization. Representatives from the cultural and artistic field will exchange with decisions-makers and elected representatives on the sector analysis results and eventually come up with recommendations. To sum-up the program of the day, a screening of the documentary “My sweet school“ will be organized. This documentary is produced by Racines, within the framework of the project “SpeakArt“.