A Users' Guide to Measuring Local Governance
A Users' Guide to Measuring Local Governance
A Users' Guide to Measuring Local Governance
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10<br />
Desde lo <strong>Local</strong><br />
(Strategic Decentralisation for <strong>Local</strong> Development – Mexico)<br />
Producer<br />
Institu<strong>to</strong> Nacional para el Federalismo y el<br />
Desarrollo Municipal – INFAED<br />
His<strong>to</strong>ry<br />
The agenda Desde lo <strong>Local</strong> is a programme<br />
developed by the Mexican Government Secretary<br />
(SEGOB), through INAFED, in order <strong>to</strong> ensure an<br />
equal level of capacity and quality of governance<br />
across Mexican municipalities. Within the Agenda,<br />
a self-evaluation <strong>to</strong>ol has been created, based on 4<br />
categories:<br />
1 Institutional Development for a Good<br />
Government<br />
2 Sustainable Economic Development<br />
3 Socially Inclusive Development<br />
4 Environmentally Sustainable Development<br />
The initiative Desde lo <strong>Local</strong> forms part of a wider<br />
international initiative for local government<br />
performance measurement, based on an adaptation<br />
of the ISO9001 quality standard <strong>to</strong> local government<br />
(called International Working Agreement 4 –<br />
IWA4), which has been strongly influenced by the<br />
UN <strong>Local</strong> Agenda 21 objectives and gives <strong>to</strong> the<br />
<strong>to</strong>ol a wider acknowledgement.<br />
The indica<strong>to</strong>rs making up the self-assessment <strong>to</strong>ol<br />
were elaborated through several meeting<br />
with academicians, representatives of municipal<br />
associations and municipal as well as federal<br />
officials. These indica<strong>to</strong>rs were tested and further<br />
refined after the pilot project.<br />
levels (national, federal and municipal) in<br />
providing specific solutions <strong>to</strong> the daily problems<br />
of citizens and local authorities. The selfassessment<br />
<strong>to</strong>ol corresponds <strong>to</strong> the first step of the<br />
Agenda Desde lo <strong>Local</strong>.The following steps are the<br />
verification of the municipal self-evaluation, the<br />
proposal and implementation of solutions for<br />
areas where indica<strong>to</strong>rs scores were low, and the<br />
emission of certificates acknowledging municipal<br />
improvements.<br />
Types and sources of data used<br />
Objective data, based on municipal statistics and<br />
regulation, administrative data on population,<br />
budgets, provisions of public services and<br />
procedures.<br />
Methodology<br />
The entire self-assessment <strong>to</strong>ol is composed of 39<br />
indica<strong>to</strong>rs organised in the 4 above-mentioned<br />
categories, along with 257 “parameters”. The two<br />
categories of Institutional Development for a Good<br />
Government and the Socially Inclusive<br />
Development include the following indica<strong>to</strong>rs:<br />
The following table presents an example of the<br />
‘parameters’ and ‘means of verification’ defined for<br />
indica<strong>to</strong>r 1.4. on ‘participa<strong>to</strong>ry municipality’.<br />
There are three levels of evaluation for each indica<strong>to</strong>r:<br />
Green = municipal practices of high quality<br />
Yellow = municipal practices under acceptable<br />
quality;<br />
Red = municipal practices not acceptable.<br />
The following table provides two examples of scoring<br />
criteria based on the “evaluation colours”.<br />
Given the focus of this guide on decentralised<br />
governance, only the categories on Institutional<br />
Development for a Good Government and Socially<br />
Inclusive Development are here described.<br />
In order <strong>to</strong> obtain a “green evaluation” for a specific<br />
indica<strong>to</strong>r, all the parameters belonging <strong>to</strong> it must<br />
be green. If only one parameter is yellow or red, the<br />
indica<strong>to</strong>r will be yellow or red, respectively.<br />
Objectives<br />
The purpose of Desde lo <strong>Local</strong> is <strong>to</strong> provide a<br />
diagnostic <strong>to</strong>ol <strong>to</strong> support the three government<br />
The self-evaluation of the municipality is then<br />
verified by a third independent entity – such as an<br />
academic institution or research outfit, recognised<br />
94 UNDP Oslo <strong>Governance</strong> Centre