Rabat, 04/01/2024 (MAP) – The Maghreb Arab News Agency (MAP) held its 38th Board of Directors meeting in Rabat on Thursday, chaired by Minister of Youth, Culture and Communication, Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid.
At the meeting, which took place in the presence of MAP Director General Fouad Arif and members of the Board, the agency’s budget for the 2024 financial year was approved, along with the moral and financial reports for 2022.
Speaking on this occasion, Bensaid highlighted the importance of MAP as a strategic national media institution that plays a major role in promoting the Kingdom’s advances and achievements in various fields under the enlightened leadership of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, and contributes to its national and international influence.
MAP agency, which is the country’s national and international media arm, has the strategic mission of defending Morocco’s interests, he said, calling for the institution’s role to be strengthened as part of the preservation of national sovereignty in terms of information and the fight against fake news.
In this regard, the Minister praised the agency’s professionalism in covering key events, including the Covid-19 pandemic and the Al Haouz earthquake.
Bensaid highlighted that MAP currently aspires, within the framework of its new vision, to stand out as a leading institution in media diplomacy by striving to reinforce the values of professionalism and ethics and by encouraging all its competencies towards innovation and creativity.
For his part, MAP Director General noted that the agency’s ambition today is to position itself as a media reference at regional and continental level, while consolidating its role as an influential tool for promoting the Kingdom’s interests internationally.
To this end, the agency’s services need to be overhauled to keep pace with changes in the national and international media landscape, and with the technological transformations the sector is undergoing, said Arif.
This new approach, he added, is based on « an immutable doctrinal prerequisite, namely our philosophy of a complementary and virtuous partnership in perfect synergy with the public sector media », pointing out that even if the agency has chosen to refocus on its core business of news dispatching, it remains determined to invest resolutely in the production of videos, photos, audios and infographics, in order to effectively implement the strategic orientations implemented under the leadership of His Majesty the King, at national, continental and international levels.
MAP Secretary General, Sanaa Ziad, presented the financial report for the 2022 financial year, as well as the budget and outline of the 2024 action plan.
This action plan focuses on several key areas, notably strengthening MAP’s mission to defend national information sovereignty, consolidating the agency’s continental and regional leadership, and transforming its current legal status into an S.A (limited company), taking advantage of the opportunities this process offers to modernize the agency’s governance and mode of operation.
It also involves implementing a digital transformation strategy, repositioning audiovisual offerings around more appealing content for media clients, ensuring an enhancement of human capital through targeted training programs, as well as rational and efficient redeployment within the agency’s regional and international clusters.
