The National Institute of Statistics and Applied Economics (INSEA) has blown out its 50 candles. In order to celebrate this anniversary, an international meeting was organised under the theme "Replacing the role of statistics in a changing national and international context" in the presence of eminent personalities from various horizons.

In his opening address, Ahmed Lahlimi, High Commissioner for Planning, first of all, hailed the preponderant place occupied by INSEA which, through high-performance training, can boast of counting among its graduates high state officials or illustrious private business leaders.

For Mr. Lahlimi, this celebration takes place in a world very different from the one that saw the creation of the Institute. A world marked by one of the most serious crises that humanity has known and which has spared neither developed nor underdeveloped countries, bringing in its wake a flood of questions in search of answers to global scourges such as poverty, unemployment, environmental degradation... In order to ward off the most urgent, international governance has tried to restore the solvency of the banking system. In doing so, it has only deepened the chasms of social inequalities in countries and further accentuated their debts; which were already substantial. Establishing a generalised policy of budgetary austerity was therefore irremediably necessary.

According to the High Commissioner for Planning, the advent of this crisis shows the limits of the conventional knowledge of dominant political economy in the era of globalisation. The way is now open to a new model capable of responding to the various material and cultural needs of society and carried by a petitionary movement. At this level, a question arises: is this the end of globalisation? It goes without saying that the new accumulation of wealth will undeniably undergo a profound overhaul regarding the hierarchy of its sectoral and technological sources. Renewable energies, ecological products and services, biotechnologies, the knowledge economy, but also the reduction of social inequalities, and regional integrations are emerging as the main engines of the global economy and the new sources of competitiveness and profit. Obviously, recalled Mr. Lahlimi, all these mutations have not failed to challenge statistics so that it can be in tune with the new data dictated by the needs of the economy. It is in this framework that the recommendations of the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi commission are situated, which call for better measuring economic performance through greater rigour of income and the factors of their sustainability. The High Commissioner welcomed the fact that the HCP has upgraded its statistical production system and its economic analysis tools within the framework of concepts, methods, and techniques for collecting and exploiting economic and social information with the recommendations of this commission. Hence the international audience that the work of the High Commission enjoys.

Mr. Lahlimi also recalled that Morocco, after having absorbed the deficits of the structural adjustment period in terms of economic and social infrastructure, finds in the progress made by its national information system an asset for the benefit of enlightening decision-makers on the efficiency of economic and social policies. Moreover, the high level of national accounting is globally recognised. Still in the same vein, Mr. Lahlimi stressed that the growth model driven by domestic demand that prevails in the country is called upon to be re-evaluated under the double angle of the sustainability of financing and the necessary consolidation of social cohesion.

Lastly, the High Commissioner insisted on the fact that statistical products, conjuncture studies, public policy simulation, and foresight which, today, integrate both economic and societal aspects, are no longer, as in the periods of administered economies or in totalitarian systems, intended for decision-makers from above but are and must remain a public good at the disposal of all citizens. With globalisation, he added, a country's statistics have become the business of the latter but also that of the international community. It is in this that when it is independent and complies with the standards established by this community, it constitutes a factor of democratisation of a society and a measure of its level of maturation. It would still be necessary for the providers of basic information, administrations, companies, and civil society to provide their assistance with speed and according to the standards established by international practice and that the users of its products only evaluate the wealth and credibility of the latter by the yardstick of the sole level of scientific rigour presiding over their development.