A cultural facility opened during one government’s term may have been planned years earlier. A project may involve a ministry, region, municipality and public institution at the same time. New creative sectors can depend simultaneously on culture, communication, education, investment and international cooperation.
For this reason, “completed during a term” does not necessarily mean “initiated by that term”. Culturama looks at the longer 2011–2026 period to understand how Morocco’s cultural system has expanded—and whether its governance has kept pace.
What does “culture” include?
The terms culture, cultural sector, cultural action and cultural and creative industries are often used as if they describe the same perimeter. They do not.
Administratively, the Culture Department covers areas including heritage, books and libraries, theatre, music, choreography, visual arts, festivals, venues and support for creation.
The IFC’s broader cultural and creative industries framework also includes audiovisual production, creative crafts, events, cultural tourism, architecture, gastronomy, advertising, publishing, fashion, design, gaming and digital arts. On this wider perimeter, the industries represented around 2.4% of Morocco’s GDP in 2022.
The Court of Auditors, using a narrower “cultural sector” perimeter, cites a contribution of no more than 0.5% of GDP, 0.8% of the business fabric and 0.4% of declared employment.
These figures do not necessarily contradict one another; they measure different objects. The gap itself reveals a governance problem: performance cannot be compared reliably until institutions agree on definitions and statistical boundaries.
A much denser ecosystem
The IFC estimates that Morocco’s cultural and creative industries generated around MAD 43 billion in revenue in 2023, supported more than 116,000 jobs and included roughly 9,500 businesses.
The field now encompasses cinemas, event companies, professional festivals, foundations, associations, incubators, creative startups, gaming studios, audiovisual producers, universities, training programmes, territorial operators and international cooperation projects.
This density is an asset. It diversifies funding, creates room for experimentation and enables new professions and markets. It also makes coordination more difficult.
Who governs culture in Morocco?
The Culture Department remains central. It develops and implements government policy within its remit and works through a central administration and 12 regional culture directorates.
Specialised institutions have their own responsibilities: the Moroccan Cinematographic Centre for film, the National Museums Foundation for part of the museum sector, and the National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco for documentary heritage and national library functions.
The territorial organisation established by the 2015 organic laws gives regions and municipalities their own or shared powers in culture, heritage and local facilities. Foundations, associations, companies, universities, international organisations and private patrons add further layers.
The result is less a hierarchy than a network.
A distributed system
A cultural centre may be built on municipal land, financed by an agreement between the State and a territorial authority, equipped by a ministry and operated by a local service. A festival may receive public money, be managed by an association, contract a private event company and partner with an international organisation.
Gaming illustrates this interdependence. Agreements announced in 2026 connected culture with higher education, vocational training, investment, tourism, technology and entrepreneurship, with a target of training nearly 4,000 gaming specialists by 2029.
Heritage similarly intersects with tourism and urban planning; arts education requires coordination with schools; film combines creation, commerce, training and regulation.
The challenge is therefore not simply to identify one authority “in charge” of culture. It is to improve the quality of relationships between authorities.
Plurality can be a strength
Polycentric governance is not automatically dysfunctional. Territorial authorities can adapt action to local realities. Specialised institutions can build expertise. Foundations, businesses and cooperation programmes can sometimes test new approaches faster than central administrations.
The problem appears when actors do not converge around common goals, territorial diagnoses, calendars, data and evaluation methods.
Morocco does not necessarily need greater centralisation. It needs stronger alignment.
MAD 6.48 billion invested: building is not enough
According to the Court of Auditors, more than MAD 6.48 billion was invested in cultural facilities between 2018 and 2024. The network reached 1,176 operating institutions, including cultural centres, theatres, libraries, media libraries and conservatories.
Yet infrastructure coverage remained uneven, and unused facilities showed that completion does not guarantee operation. Governance must cover the entire lifecycle: territorial need, planning, financing, construction, staffing, programming, maintenance, audience development and evaluation.
A building without an operating model is an asset on paper, not necessarily a cultural public service.
From institutional maps to shared accountability
A stronger governance framework would clarify:
- which institution leads each policy area;
- which responsibilities are shared;
- how State and territorial funding are combined;
- who operates and maintains each facility;
- which indicators are collected across organisations;
- how citizens and cultural professionals can assess results.
Common data is especially important. Without comparable information on spending, audiences, employment, activity and territorial access, each organisation can report outputs while the system’s overall effect remains uncertain.
The central question
Morocco’s cultural ecosystem has undeniably expanded since 2011. It is economically broader, institutionally denser and more connected to education, tourism, digital industries and investment.
The unresolved issue is not whether there are enough actors. It is whether their actions form a coherent policy.
The next stage of cultural governance should therefore focus on convergence: shared definitions, interoperable data, coordinated territorial planning, explicit operating responsibilities and public evaluation. A dense ecosystem becomes a cultural system only when its parts can work toward common outcomes.
