CASES OF MEXICO AND COSTA RICA
The principles outlined in the 2030 Agenda provide us with the opportunity to promote government-led evaluations in which the active participation of all stakeholders is the key element that allows us to advance along the road to social transformation and sustainable development while ‘leaving no one behind’.
Within this framework, two participatory evaluation experiences were carried out between 2019 and 2021 by the governments of Mexico and Costa Rica, with the support of the Focelac+ project ‘Strengthening a Culture of Evaluation and Learning in Latin America with a Global Outlook’, run by Deval, the German Institute for Development Evaluation.
Both experiences were characterised by the inclusion of new actors in decision making during the design and implementation of the evaluation process and in the use of its results. They specifically involved groups whose living conditions were expected to improve as a result of the interventions under evaluation. Another element shared by both experiences was the focus on learning and the ways in which the results would be used. Both were based on the assumption that a more active participation of stakeholder groups would in turn lead to increased capacity building and increased ownership of the process, resulting in the recommendations being put to greater use.
Mexico evaluated the Mi Pasaje programme in the state of Jalisco. This programme provides transport subsidies to people with disabilities, the elderly and students, and increases accessibility to the public transport service, as a way to promote mobility and the social and economic participation of these groups. This evaluation was driven by the government’s Evalúa Jalisco evaluation unit, which is part of the General Directorate of Participatory Planning and Evaluation, under the Secretariat of Planning and Citizen Participation.
In Costa Rica, the ‘promotion of personal autonomy for persons with disabilities’ programme, run by the National Council for Persons with Disabilities (CONAPDIS) was evaluated. This programme seeks to help people with disabilities living in poverty to exercise their right to personal autonomy by providing human assistance and other support measures. It also promotes and monitors respect for the human rights of this population in order to achieve inclusive development. This evaluation was led by the Evaluation Unit of the Ministry of Planning and Economic Policy (Mideplan), the governing body of the National Evaluation System.
EvalParticipativa produced the video featured below in 2023 (English subtitles), which showcases the testimonies of some of the key individuals who actively participated in each evaluation. The experiences described here demonstrate the great potential of participatory evaluations to improve and strengthen public policy.
