Evaluation of the Impact of Moroccan Cultural Diplomacy: Tools, Challenges and Insights -The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccan Expatriates as a Case-Study

Abstract

This paper sheds light on the tools used by the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs to evaluate the impact of cultural diplomacy. It relies on extensive qualitative fieldwork carried out at the Directorate of Cooperation and Cultural Action. The study aims at depicting the challenges that Moroccan cultural diplomacy faces and the extent to which these challenges influence evaluation practices. It adopts a case-study design based on the use of semi-structured interviews, observation and document analysis. The findings reveal that the evaluation is based on reports elaborated by posts abroad, and on the study of Morocco’s reputation conducted by the Royal Institute of Strategic Studies. The findings also show that the challenges that influence the establishment of effective evaluation strategies reside in the lack of human and financial resources, the depreciation of the potential of cultural diplomacy, the multiplicity of actors, issues of attribution and the lack of understanding of soft power practices. This paper also argues that the strategy deployed by the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs represents the main challenge that hinders the evaluation of Moroccan cultural diplomacy, and suggests the establishment of a unified cultural diplomacy strategy between Moroccan cultural diplomacy actors based on the logic model.