Graciela Márquez explained that, after the secondary reforms carried out by the previous government, the redesign left the evaluation of social programs separated from the comprehensive evaluation of social policy. In his explanation, the “1:1” social programs (he mentioned Youth Building the Future and Sowing Life as an example) will not be evaluated by Inegi, but by an undersecretary of the Treasury.
According to Márquez, this task was left to a unit of the Undersecretariat of Expenditures of the Ministry of Finance, within the budget cycle: in a flow of resource allocation, exercise and evaluation, to provide feedback for future spending decisions.
“Comprehensive evaluation” and why the focus changes
Márquez insisted that Inegi’s mandate is different and the law requires a comprehensive evaluation of social policy, an area where Mexico has less tradition because programs have historically been evaluated, not social policies as a whole.
In that context, he explained that Coneval had already been moving towards thematic evaluations and groupings (beyond program by program), and that Inegi seeks to take that background to build the new approach.
Today, the Institute is fine-tuning the conceptual framework for this comprehensive evaluation. According to Márquez, the work is led by Dr. Gabriela Pérez Yarahuán, together with Claudia Maldonado (who also directs the new structure linked to poverty).
The objective is to consolidate this framework during the first quarter of the year and aim for a first delivery around August or September, said the economist who leads Inegi.
He also made it clear that the law states that the evaluation will be annual, but does not offer guidance on periods, temporal scope (for example, “until 2025”) or on how to measure a policy that is not strictly annual, so those details have yet to be defined.
Links are maintained with international organizations
According to the testimony of a worker from an international organization, when Coneval existed there were close working links – methodologies, technical exchange – that allowed more detailed documents to be published on, for example, child poverty and that after the change those communication channels would have been “lost.”
However, Márquez responded that Inegi maintains links with United Nations organizations, including ECLAC, and that they have not perceived a systematic loss of communication.
She added that she herself had meetings with Unicef and other agencies to clarify who the links are, and suggested that part of the problem could lie with the cuts in UN agencies (she mentioned a cut of around 20% of personnel last October), which would also have moved interlocutors.
Even so, he said that they will review the specific case to identify if there was a lack of a directory or more internal dissemination about where the information is and who to coordinate with.
