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AZETTA used international lobbying to leverage national lobbying channels in a timely manner in order to address discrimination targeting the Amazigh community in Morocco, making it possible for Moroccan citizens to use the Amazigh language to name their children.

Azetta is a network, established in 2002, composed of NGOs advocating for the cultural and linguistic rights of the Amazigh communities in Morocco. In 2009, AZETTA seized the opportunity of the legislative elections on the national level to advance the network’s recommendations. Through a participative consultation process, AZETTA drafted a document containing their recommendations to be addressed to the appropriate governmental authorities. In addition to roundtables and raising awareness activities that were well covered by the media, several meetings were conducted with civil society actors, specifically the political parties presenting candidates to the elections. AZETTA also took part in the coalition monitoring the elections which enabled them to issue a report about the elections and the discriminations affecting the Amazigh community.

On a parallel track, AZETTA prepared a shadow report in partnership with the Moroccan Association for Human Rights on the implementation of the Moroccan government regarding its obligations under the Convention for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). The report was submitted to the treaty body in Geneva, which allowed the network to attend the CERD’s committee session. AZETTA was successful in lobbying for concluding observations in their favor. AZETTA held a national roundtable in Morocco highlighting the CERD committee’s concluding observations, which gained significant media coverage and appearances aimed at raising awareness about the concluding observations of the CERD committee, advancing though the subject of the concluding observations to the public sphere in a way to put additional pressure on the authorities.

As a result of AZETTA’s parallel efforts of leveraging the CERD’s concluding observations at the international level with their national level lobbying, the Moroccan Minister of Interior lifted the ban on the right of Moroccan citizens to choose Amazigh names for their children.

A major obstacle encountered by AZETTA was on the internal organizational level as the network lacked the skills of writing a shadow report according to the UN standards. In addition, many of civil society actors were not aware about such international advocacy mechanisms. However, through the implementation of capacity building trainings, and engaging with international experts in the field, in addition to conducting several raising awareness sessions on the international advocacy mechanisms, the network was able to alleviate the impact of those weaknesses.

AZETTA network was established in 2002 in an effort to regroup the NGOs working on the fulfillment of the Amazigh community rights in Morocco. Present in most of the governorates in Morocco, AZETTA network strives to reestablish the cultural and linguistic rights of Amazigh, as this community is subject to a significant number of discriminatory practices at the law and law enforcement levels.