The Moroccan perspective of a reconfigured post-covid diplomacy was presented by Ambassador Youssef Amrani who was speaking, on Tuesday, as a panelist on the Al Jazeera program “Inside Story”, held under the theme “Is digital diplomacy a future alternative?”.
Speaking alongside renowned international experts, namely Tom Fletcher, Director of Hertford College, Oxford, and Advisor to three British Prime Ministers, and Theresa Fallon, President of the Center for Russia, Europe Asia Studies, the Moroccan diplomat shed some light on what he described as a paradigm shift in the exercise of diplomatic action which can not continue without a necessary adaptation in its procedures and working tools.
Starting from the idea that the global Covid-19 pandemic has imposed a new reality in international relations and interaction, Amrani stressed that the diplomat has faced an exercise in structural and profound questioning of how he even sees the practice of his profession and more generally the cooperation schemes of a diplomacy that cannot afford to move backwards.
The main consequence of the coronavirus is that it highlighted the need to guarantee and strengthen the resilience of an international order based on rules, principles and organized coherence, he noted. In this sense, Amrani underlined that the fight against the pandemic is eminently the responsibility of international diplomacy, which is called upon to use all the levers at its disposal to ensure the continuity of dialogue, exchange and a concerted international decision in phase with current and upcoming challenges.
As such, the ambassador praised the benefits of digital diplomacy which has made it possible, to a certain extent, to “circumvent” the health restrictions of a virus which has drastically limited the possibilities of human interactions, yet so fundamental in the exercise of an action diplomacy. Recognizing the undeniable contribution of new communication technologies, he said that “diplomacy is first and foremost contact, words and trust which can only be found around a negotiating table where the human, meaning the diplomat, interacts with all his senses to convince, influence and debate.
“Nothing replaces direct contact, meeting rooms in New York, Vienna or Geneva where you can find the best possible compromise through negotiation. Digital tools cannot replace humans. It must be a vehicle for rapprochement and not a replacement, he said.
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