Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni’s appointment as Minister Delegate in charge of Digital Transition and Administrative Reform signals a commitment to modernizing Morocco’s government and boosting its economic competitiveness. Named to the post in October 2024, she is focused on leveraging digital technologies to improve state efficiency and drive sustainable growth.
Dr. El Fallah Seghrouchni brings a strong academic background to her role, holding a doctorate in computer science from the University Pierre and Marie Curie (Paris VI) and research qualification in artificial intelligence from the University Sorbonne Paris Nord. She previously served as a Professor at Sorbonne University, where for fifteen years she led the Multi-Agent Systems (SMA) team within the Paris 6 Computer Science Laboratory (LIP6).
A prolific researcher, she has authored over 200 articles and supervised 35 doctoral theses. Her expertise has also been recognized through membership in the UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST), and a position on the Higher Council of Education, Training and Scientific Research from 2022-2027. In 2021, she received the Berkeley World Business Analytics Award in the “Woman of the Year” category for the African continent.
Prior to her government appointment, El Fallah Seghrouchni served as President of the International Center for Artificial Intelligence of Morocco (AI Movement), affiliated with Mohammed VI Polytechnic University. Under her leadership, the center achieved UNESCO Category II status for the African region, solidifying Morocco’s position as an emerging hub for AI innovation.
A Strategic Vision for a High-Performing State
El Fallah Seghrouchni’s entry into government reflects a firm belief that digital transformation is crucial for enhancing Morocco’s competitiveness in the global economy and optimizing institutional performance. She emphasizes that artificial intelligence should be directly beneficial to citizens.
“We must be able to create systems proactive, capable of usefully surprising the customer by going beyond simply extrapolating from the past,” she stated during a finance event hosted by this publication, outlining a strategy applicable to both public services and the private sector. The task, she acknowledged, is demanding.
The digital transformation of the administration is not merely a technological project, but a significant economic reform. It will require transition costs, organizational adjustments, and more efficient resource allocation. Digitalizing public services, dematerializing procedures, and ensuring database interoperability demand rigor and institutional capacity building.
To this finish, the draft framework law “Digital X.0” is designed to structure a new ecosystem of digital governance. A key principle championed by the minister is a “sectoral identifier” digital identity. Rather than exposing a citizen’s entire data set with each interaction, access would be limited to what is strictly necessary for specific purposes – banking, healthcare, insurance – prioritizing privacy by design. The focus is on controlling the flow of information with precision and traceability, rather than exposing all citizen data.
International experience demonstrates that the quality of digital administration is increasingly important to foreign investors. According to El Fallah Seghrouchni, a country’s competitiveness is now measured not only by simplified procedures or geographical decentralization, but also by the maturity of its digital state and the robustness of its technological infrastructure.
AI as a Lever for Sovereignty and Trust
Integrating artificial intelligence into public administration opens a new phase. AI enables predictive analysis of public policies, fine-tuning of resource allocation, and early detection of administrative anomalies. These advancements are prerequisites for digital sovereignty. The minister believes that data protection, cybersecurity, and control of infrastructure are now essential for economic stability, as a digitalized economy without adequate protection exposes its financial system, businesses, and institutions to significant risks.
She advocates for a balanced approach: “The ambition is not to tighten regulations unnecessarily, but to align rules with usage whereas protecting citizens, digital identity, and trust.” Interoperability, she argues, cannot rely on approximate consent; it requires explicit, traceable consent and data exchanges limited to authorized information. The reforms led by Seghrouchni are fundamentally reshaping the administrative apparatus.
However, unlike budgetary or sectoral reforms, the impact of digital transformation is not always immediately visible. It is a gradual, widespread, but profoundly transformative process that reconfigures decision-making circuits, streamlines processes, and fosters a lasting culture of performance and accountability.
The appointment of a scientist of El Fallah Seghrouchni’s caliber to such a strategic ministerial portfolio is therefore significant. Morocco is prioritizing competence and rigor in shaping its future. Her influence is driving a sustainable modernization, laying the foundations for a more agile, secure, and competitive economy, with digital sovereignty at its core.
F.Z Ouriaghli
