A Users' Guide to Measuring Local Governance

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