Strengthening the social policy in the State of Mexico with the incorporation of 2030 Agenda
Description
On November 2017, the Government of the State of Mexico created a 2030 Agenda follow-up and implementation commission, as part of its commitment to the SDGs achievement. Later, on March 2018, the new administration presented its 2018-2023 Development Plan, which considered the 2030 Agenda as a cross-cutting theme. Consequently, the current Governor considered as a priority to evaluate the design of the main social programmes in the state, to guarantee its contribution to the SDGs. With this, the Government of State of Mexico have become a pioneer in the mainstreaming of the 2030 Agenda in the local planning and management.
This practice is based on a collaboration between the UNDP Mexico Office and the Ministry of Social Development of the State of Mexico and its objective is to evaluate the design of 9 social development programmes to, on one hand, analyze their structure and functionality to achieve their specific goals and, on the other hand, to identify in what extent each programme contributes the SDGs achievement. The evaluation process consists in the analysis of the programmes justification; the programmes’ alignment to the local planning and the 2030 Agenda; the mechanism for the beneficiaries’ selection; the logical framework; the monitoring and evaluation systems; budgets and accountability mechanisms; and their complementarity and integrality with other social and economic programmes. By means of this practice, UNDP have objectively pointed out the strengths and debilities of the evaluated programmes to make changes on their design that will contribute to reach the furthest behind, reduce inequalities and tackle poverty directly in the State of Mexico.<br />
As part of the activities in the project, UNDP have issued recommendations to strengthen the state’ social policy to identify the interventions that could accelerate the progress of the different regions and municipalities, by the complementarities among programmes and the generation of alliances. The objective of this process is to get an integrated strategy that would contribute to solve specific necessities for the general population in the state. UNDP has worked directly with the Ministry of Social Development of the State of Mexico, particularly with the Council for the Research and Evaluation of Social Policy, to define and consolidate that integrated strategy called “Familias Fuertes” (Strong Families) by creating SMART indicators and interlinking the programmes that would have an impact on those indicators. <br />
Finally, the practice also considers the capacity-building of the public servers responsible of the design of development programmes and projects with the 2030 Agenda perspective.
For the project implementation, UNDP has stablished a collaboration agreement with the Ministry of Social Development of the State of Mexico. The project was operated by the Council for the Research and Evaluation of Social Policy and the experts in evaluation of the UNDP Mexico. The Council was responsible of determining the 9 programmes that would be evaluated, while UNDP defined the working plan for the three general strategies: a) design evaluation methodology and process, b) consolidation of the integrated strategy “Familias Fuertes” and c) public servers’ capacity-building.
The programmes’ design evaluation consisted in the definition of a methodology, the dialogue with the different servers responsible of the programmes, the evaluation process and the results delivery. The methodology was mainly based on the national recommendations and reference terms for policy design evaluation. However, as the project main component is to incorporate the 2030 Agenda approach in the social policy, most of the evaluation questions were adapted to its context.
Once determined the methodology of evaluation, UNDP did a desk review process to analyse the different components of the selected programmes. In addition, the experts hold different dialogue processes with the people responsible of the programmes, in order to identify complementary information that would led to more effective evaluation. Finally, the UNDP team has elaborated one report per evaluated programme with recommendations for their strengthening.
Parallel to the definition of the methodology of the design evaluation, UNDP team worked on a methodology for the analysis of the local social integrality in the strategy “Familias Fuertes”. It consisted in the identification of specific components that would lead to have a strong family in the state and how the different interventions or programmes would have a positive impact on achieving the social and economic development of those families, without endangering the environment. After the creation of the methodology, UNDP worked side by side with the Council for the Research and Evaluation of the Social Policy in the State of Mexico in the definition of the integrated strategy and its alignment to the 2030 Agenda. The incorporation of the 2030 Agenda approach was linked in the logical framework of the strategy by considering the SDGs’ priorities, targets and indicators.
Finally for the capacity-building strategy, UNDP experts developed a Guide for the design of programmes and projects with the 2030 Agenda approach. This guide was based in the logical framework methodology and the Based-results management. Once the document was finished, UNDP experts hold a two days workshop with 50 local public servers, who are in charge of the planning and design of the social development programmes.
From the establishment of the collaboration project with the Government of the State of Mexico, UNDP defined indicators to track the results obtained in this practice, which were met in general.
Despite the evaluated programmes could be modified in the next administration, this exercise has settled a standard in what should be considered in the design of social development programmes by incorporating the 2030 Agenda approach in the local social policy. By this, the programmes would define clear and specific goals that could have a direct impact to the SDGs achievement.
It is important to emphasize that the nine evaluated programmes are focused on the social and economic development of the most vulnerable groups.
This practice was successful because UNDP has emitted recommendations with professionalism and objectivity. In this sense, the Government of the State of Mexico had the opportunity to integrate the results in their social policy in order to strengthen the programmes focused on social and economic development of their population while reaching the SDGs targets in the State. This could lead them to be one of the pioneers in integrating the 2030 Agenda perspective in their planning and management for development.
SDGS & Targets
Deliverables & Timeline
Resources mobilized
Partnership Progress
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Action Network
![SDG Good Practices First Call](/sites/default/files/2021-12/goodp1.jpg)
![Smart](/themes/custom/porto/assets/smart_off.png)
Timeline
Entity
Region
- Latin America and the Caribbean
Geographical coverage
Website/More information
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![Mexico Mexico](/sites/default/files/stakeholders/flagbig6_34.jpg)
Contact Information
Cynthia Martinez, Miss