Jorge Florez – Project Manager

August 22, 2017

Para leer este blog en español, haga clic aquí

Earlier this month I joined representatives from Mexican state-level Access to Information Institutes to discuss how we could support progress towards more open fiscal governance at the subnational level (our presentation at the event is here – in Spanish). The event marked the beginning of a second phase of our Follow the Money work in Mexico (find out more about the first phase of this project here).

In partnership with Mexico’s National Institute for Access to Information (INAI) and Gestión Social y Cooperación (GESOC), we are working to improve the ways in which public resources are used to tackle local challenges in five Mexican states. The theory of change motivating this project is straightforward. By supporting local stakeholders as they craft and implement solutions to locally relevant development challenges, we will help them access information on how public resources are used, and to more effectively use that information to collaborate in addressing challenges that matter to them. This process will enable local governments and civil society to improve how public funds are used while also helping them to better understand, get, and use fiscal data to address other local challenges that emerge in the future.

In order to achieve our goal we will support open governance champions in the states of Chihuahua, Durango, Sonora, Veracruz, and Zacatecas. Our support to local stakeholders in these states will include: producing materials and conducting trainings on how to use the treasure hunt method, and on how to get, understand, and use fiscal data; providing on-demand technical support as they craft and implement solutions to local challenges; and facilitating reflection, learning and adaptation to increase the effectiveness of our partners.

For the implementation of this project we have put together a learning framework that will allow us to assess our progress towards achieving the goal of the project, make course corrections to increase our effectiveness, and generate lessons and insights that can inform the work of other actors advancing more open fiscal governance in Mexico and beyond. In the coming months we will be launching the project at the state level. Stay tuned for more on the evolution of this project!

Later this week we will be attending ABRELATAM/CONDATOS (the Latin American Open Data Conference). During the conference there are lots of interesting sessions and events, and we are very excited to be co-leading a session and an event:

1. On Tuesday, August 22nd at 5:00 pm, Hivos, Development Gateway, and Global integrity will be hosting a Follow the Money Happy Hour! We will be discussing recent progress on opening and using data about public resources  (i.e. budgets, spending, contracts, extractives, aid, and more!) to address local challenges.
2. On Thursday, August 24th at 10:30 am, the Open Contracting Partnership and Global integrity will facilitate a session called “Enredados” (or entangled) with presentations by CoST Honduras, Mexico’s Ministry of Finance, PODER, and Ojo con mi pisto. During the session we will foster a honest dialogue about open data and the use of public resources in the region, the challenges in connecting different types of data, and most importantly, how to move towards a greater use of these data to shape the use of public money to deliver improved development outcomes!

If you would like to chat about the state of play on fiscal governance in the region and ways to move it forward, we will be happy meet you. Contact Jorge Florez @j_florezh on twitter or jorge.florez@globalintegrity.org.