Morocco’s economic growth, strong in the early 2000s, had slowed; job creation in the formal sector was anemic; rising environmental stress was deepening regional inequalities, as the government struggled to deliver high-quality public services to all parts of the country. The CSMD’s challenge was to propose a new model of development for Morocco, recentered on citizens and their needs. But how to hold a conversation with 36 million people? How to weigh all the needs, aspirations, and ideas of their fellow citizens, not to mention the diverse opinions of the commissioners themselves? Chakib Benmoussa, Morocco’s ambassador to France and president of the new Commission, issued a challenge to his colleagues: “our method will be collective intelligence.” Collective intelligence (CI) describes the ability of groups to outperform individuals in learning, decision-making, and problem-solving, among other cognitive challenges. It is an ability that has de fined our species, from collectively hunting animals far stronger than us, to discovering and distributing an MRNA vaccine. In the face of a common challenge, many minds join together to accomplish what even the most talented individual could not do alone. A complex, fast-changing environment has conditioned us to collaborate, but collective intelligence doesn’t just happen: a group must be organized in the right way, with the right tools for the task at hand. Crowds can be stupid as well as smart, and too often our own habits and institutions stand in the way. What governments are discovering is that collective intelligence methods bring two critical sources of value to the public sphere. First, as problems grow in complexity, collective intelligence can provide faster, more creative, and more accurate solutions. Secondly, the crisis of declining trust in institutions and increasing polarization creates an urgent need for new forms of public collaboration. Studies have shown a wide range of positive effects of these processes: on individual empathy, critical thinking, and confidence; on alignment around shared goals; on trust and respect for institutions; and on tolerance across political and social divide
