On June 2, President Pe\u00f1a officially stated that the current month \u201cwould not be a re-launch but an assessment\u201d of the National Crusade against Hunger, initiated on April 2013.\u00a0 Although eighteen months may seem few to evaluate the program\u2019s effectiveness, its characteristics are part of the familiar tale that is the way in which social policy works in Mexico: grand promises of diminishing poverty and inequality, large quantities of public resources, minimal results in the attainment of the rhetoric target (though politicians do manage to get outstanding electoral results) or, simply put, resounding failures.
\nThrough decades, social policy has been modified at the discretion of the administration in office. However, all have shared a same trait: a short-term, welfare focus that might never \u2013 and perhaps doesn\u2019t even intend to \u2013 transcend beyond a meager decrease \u2013 in the best case scenario \u2013 of poverty levels. As a matter of fact, both beneficiaries as well as the government itself have little to no incentives to change the status quo.\u00a0 Those who receive assistance from social program with the so-called purpose of \u201cpulling themselves out of poverty\u201d find that it is more convenient to remain as a beneficiary from a \u201credistribution policy\u201d rather than overcoming their condition, getting a job \u2013 something that is not easy nowadays –\u00a0 and it being poorly paid and unstable. With all of this being said, the \u201cbest\u201d scenario is having the opportunity of joining the informal sector, while at the same time remaining as beneficiaries of the social policy. On the other hand, governments perpetuate social programs as ways to exercise governance control and consolidate potential voters. A possible difference between the governments from 1994 to 2012 and the current one is that past administrations at least had the purpose of diminishing poverty while the present-day Presidency explicitly envisions social policy as a tool for cronyism.
\nOn the other hand, the increase on the number of the social program\u2019s beneficiaries, a datum that is usually much-publicized by the in-office administration, is not a right indicator to measure the scheme\u2019s effectiveness. On the contrary, the fact that the number of individuals that receive some sort of government welfare is the most striking illustration of the little (or non-existent) progress made to alleviate poverty. Although the performance of the National Council for Social Policy Evaluation (CONEVAL) has gained prestige and legitimacy on measuring the effects of social programs, there is still a pending issue: using the assessment results as tools to enhance the programs as well as the distribution of budget. Although the recent reform of the 26th Constitutional article provided autonomy to CONEVAL, it does not guarantee a better performance of the entity or a clearer coordination between evaluations and measures to improve it.
\nEven though the government feels comfortable with broadening the number of beneficiaries, questions to these measures will arise as some sectors of the society continue to evolve; this is not due to the effects of an adequate social policy but due to factors quite different from government welfare. As of now, it seems that the latter will only occur when social policies are enhances with a factor that does not seem to be part of the whole picture: economic growth. At the end of the day and since ancient times, it remains as the only efficient instrument for tackling poverty.<\/p>\n
CIDAC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On June 2, President Pe\u00f1a officially stated that the current month \u201cwould not be a re-launch but an assessment\u201d of the National Crusade against Hunger, initiated on April 2013. Although eighteen months may seem few to evaluate the program\u2019s effectiveness, its characteristics are part of the familiar tale that is the way in which social policy works in Mexico: grand promises of diminishing poverty and inequality, large quantities of public resources, minimal results in the attainment of the rhetoric target (though politicians do manage to get outstanding electoral results) or, simply put, resounding failures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[30],"class_list":["post-3574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weekly-political-analysis","tag-political-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3574"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4192,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3574\/revisions\/4192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}