Mexico Results Report 2019-2022

The fourth action planAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen... brings several lessons since it was developed during the pandemic and in an environment of polarization between the government and civil society. The plan achieved early resultsEarly results refer to concrete changes in government practice related to transparency, citizen participation, and/or public accountability as a result of a commitment’s implementation. OGP’s Inde... More in nine of the thirteen commitments, four of them with significant or exceptional achievements. There is evidence of an increase in spaces for citizen participationAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, citizen participation occurs when “governments seek to mobilize citizens to engage in public debate, provide input, and make contributions that lead to m... More and improvements in transparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More and access to information, as well as more actionable dialogues between civil society and the government. There are still areas for improvement for a fifth plan, such as giving greater specificity and attention to citizen participation mechanisms, incorporating the accountability component in future commitments, and strengthening dialogue and trust between civil society and the government.

Early Results[1]

The implementation of the fourth action plan took place in context of the global pandemic. However, nine of the thirteen commitments achieved early results given the willingness and adaptability of the participants: five achieved marginal open government results, three achieved significant results, and one commitment achieved outstanding results. However, four commitments were paused without evidence of early results, of which three were listed as inactive[2]. Despite the challenges, the fourth plan’s implementation yields a marked improvement in early open government results in Mexico compared to the third action plan, in which only two commitments out of eleven achieved significant results[3]. It is clear that the third plan was affected by the departure of civil society in the middle of the plan due to the spy government case[4].

Among the early results of open government of the fourth action plan, the following stand out: greater understanding and inclusionOGP participating governments are working to create governments that truly serve all people. Commitments in this area may address persons with disabilities, women and girls, lesbian, gay, bisexual, tr... More in spaces for citizen participation; increasing access to information and improvements in its usefulness, as well as advancing the impact of open dataBy opening up data and making it sharable and reusable, governments can enable informed debate, better decision making, and the development of innovative new services. Technical specifications: Polici...; how transparency makes it possible to influence opaque issues and act on them using evidence; the necessary focus on local problems and the necessary coordination by the different orders and powers to solve them; the relevanceAccording to the OGP Articles of Governance, OGP commitments should include a clear open government lens. Specifically, they should advance at least one of the OGP values: transparency, citizen partic... of giving continuity to previous plans and taking advantage of tools used in other open government spaces; and the importance of including new actors in the open government agenda.

CompletionImplementers must follow through on their commitments for them to achieve impact. For each commitment, OGP’s Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) evaluates the degree to which the activities outlin... More

All the commitments of the fourth action plan began by establishing their working group and dialogue. However, not all achieved the same level of completion: seven commitments were completed to a limited extent, five at a substantial level, and only one commitment reached the level of completion. The completed commitment (forest, water and fisheries management) is one of five identified as outstanding in the design report, while the other four made only limited progress in meeting their targets. Compared to the previous plan, slightly higher levels of completion were achieved[5].

The fourth plan addressed several issues including natural resources, educationAccountability within the public education system is key to improving outcomes and attainment, and accountability is nearly impossible without transparent policies and opportunities for participation ..., health, sexual rights, security, privacy and transparency, and traceability of public spending. This diversity reflects how the open government agenda is applicable to different public policies. There was a trend of greater impact and completion due to commitments on natural resources issues. This trend should be considered in future open government exercises in Mexico. But beyond specific areas, the elements that contributed to the implementation and early results of the commitments were:

• Adapting and making use of virtual meetings.
• Collaborative work with the Coordinating Committee.
• The willingness of the participants to establish a collaborative environment and pursue concrete actions.
• Having individuals who have an influence on the theme and agreed-upon actions.
• Seeing progress, as actions were being implemented in sequence.
• Sharing of information.

The factors that inhibited the implementation and early results of the commitments are: staff and heads of public organizations turnover; the pandemic; low participation in certain commitments by public officials and members of civil society; the civil society’s pause of its works in three of the commitments: 1 (open spending), 5 (labor inclusion), and 9 (trusts)[6]; other agendas and priorities that emerged (electionsImproving transparency in elections and maintaining the independence of electoral commissions is vital for promoting trust in the electoral system, preventing electoral fraud, and upholding the democr... More; decree to eliminate trusts); the high ambitionAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, OGP commitments should “stretch government practice beyond its current baseline with respect to key areas of open government.” Ambition captures the po... and low feasibility of some actions (modify legal frameworks); and the lack of involvement of key stakeholders.

Participation and Co-creation

The Open Government Partnership (OGP) process is overseen by the Coordinating Committee of the Open Government Partnership (CCAGA) which replaced the Tripartite Technical Secretariat (STT) [7]. This committee is made up of the Nucleus of Civil Society Organizations (NOSC), the National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data (INAI), and the Ministry of Public Administration (SFP), who leads it. In addition, the Committee must have the figure of technical adviser from the academic sector[8], but by the end of the fourth plan this position has not been put into operation. It is important to highlight that during the fourth action plan there was a change of hands in both the INAI and the SFP.

The implementation of the fourth plan meets the minimum requirements of the OGP Participation and Co-Creation Standards. The commitments showed greater representation and inclusion approaches, although sometimes it was impossible to implement the citizen participation mechanism. Also there were changes to what was established in the roadmaps. It is important to point out that near the end of the fourth action plan, allegations of a spy government[9] returned. Civil society declared three new cases of interception of communications of human rights defenders and journalists. This situation leads the NOSC to express its concern about these new cases of intervention and express that the minimum conditions for the co-creation of a fifth action plan under the OGP framework[10] are nonexistent.

Implementation in Context

One of the commitments’ most common barriers at the federal level was the turnover of participating staff and the change of heads in public institutions, including in institutions of the Coordinating Committee. This meant the reassessing of agendas and re-explaining the context to new participants. There were also problems of participation in which both civil society and public institutions were initially participatory and then moved away leaving those who remained with overwork.

The pandemic was also an obstacle during the start of the Plan, but the extension granted by OGP to prolong the period of the action plans[11] and the positive results of virtuality lessened its effects. Another challenge to advance the open government agenda was the polarized environment between the government and civil society. In addition, the emerging government agendas that were not anticipated or effectively considered, such as the decree that called for the elimination of trusts, the revision of the Social Comptroller’s guidelines, and the federal and state elections, created feasibility problems between what was agreed in some commitments and the new context.

[1] For more familiarity with the distinction between early results and level of compliance, you can refer to Section IV of this report. For more information on what the IRM refers to as “early results”, you can consult: https://www.opengovpartnership.org/es/glossary/early-results. For this report, the “transformative” and not the “major” classification is used.

[2] The Coordinating Committee of OGP in Mexico (CC-AGA MX) classified three of the commitments as inactive (1, 5, and 9). The particularities of each commitment are explained in Annex I of this report. According to the pre-publication comments by the SFP, on February 27, 2023: “The Coordinating Committee of OGP in Mexico (CC-AGA MX), held a process of dialogue and deliberation on the category of “inactive” commitments, due to the fact that they were commitments that, for several reasons, the CC-AGA MX concluded, in a consensual manner, that there were no conditions to continue with their implementation”. For more information on the reasons that led commitment 1 to be classified as inactive, consult the minutes of the Working Group dated December 13, 2021, available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/ 16NU9euOUgbzWF1GeIp8Sd6ldmmO5FBXa/view?usp=sharing.

For the same information on commitment 5, consult the minutes of the Coordinating Committee dated May 3, 2022, available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EstFhhFgde_1LiMEWEQmQSzP1MV8AlXK/view?usp=sharing.

For the same information on commitment 9, consult the minutes of the Coordinating Committee dated October 20, 2022, available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bRAO_fyZk2ZxIEAGOdMRxW9UWOODpbGA/view?usp=sharing.

[3] Open Government Partnership, “End of Term Report México 2016-2018”, 2019, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Mexico_EOTR_2016-2018.pdf.

[4] Details of this case can be found in several sources, for example: “#GobiernoEspía: Systematic surveillance of journalists and human rights defenders in Mexico”: https://r3d.mx/2017/06/19/gobierno-espia/ ; “Two years of spy government: a chronology of impunity”: https://r3d.mx/2019/06/19/gobierno-espia-cronologia/. In addition, you can consult the IRM End-of-Term Report 2016-2018 here: https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Mexico_EOTR_2016-2018.pdf and the Response Policy Case here: https://www.opengovpartnership.org/es/ogp-response-policy/response-policy-case-mexico

[5] According to the “Mexico End-of-Term Report 2016-2018”, in the third plan, five of the 11 commitments were substantially completed, five were limited, and one was not started. Compared to the third plan, for the fourth plan there was a slight improvement in the proportion of commitments with a substantial or complete level completion, although more with limited completion. Unlike the third plan, however, all commitments were initiated. IRM, 2019, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Mexico_EOTR_2016-2018.pdf De acuerdo al

[6] These commitments were classified as inactive by the Coordinating Committee of OGP in Mexico (CC-AGA MX), which led to stop working on them. The particularities of each commitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action... are explained in Annex I of this report.

[7] The complete agreement that led to the creation of the Coordinating Committee can be consulted here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Tx704DMy5bNAvKMTfbmgmoOtGoS9hNa_/view, just like the Response Policy Case by OGP: https://www.opengovpartnership.org/es/ogp-response-policy/response-policy-case-mexico/.

[8] For more information, consult the guidelines of the Coordinating Committee of OGP in Mexico, here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GGGN3JnGZd8hfm_0MvbRXNaeOndTzD0Y/view.

[9] For more information on the statements of civil society regarding “spy government”, access here: https://articulo19.org/sociedad-civil-suspende-su-participacion-en-los-trabajos-de-la-alianza-para-el-gobierno-abierto-por-nuevos-casos-de-espionaje/. For more context of the situation, consult article from the New York Times, March 7, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/es/2023/03/07/espanol/espionaje-ejercito-pegasus-mexico.html

[10] Based on interviews with members of civil society, pre-publication comments compiled by SFP on February 27, 2023, and a statement published by CSO Article 19, https://articulo19.org/sociedad-civil-suspende-su-participacion-en-los-trabajos-de-la-alianza-para-el-gobierno-abierto-por-nuevos-casos-de-espionaje/ 

[11] In March 2020, the OGP Criteria and Standards subcommittee issued a COVID-19 Resolution allowing certain guidelines for member countries in their action plans in response to the pandemic. In the case of Mexico, it applied to extend the implementation period for 12 months until August 31, 2022. For more information, see: https://www.opengovpartnership.org/es/documents/criteria-and-standards-subcommittee-resolution-covid19-pandemic