Centro de Investigaciónes y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social

The Observatory of Maternal Mortality has monitored the Agreement to Strengthen Public Health Actions in States with the objective of promoting it as a management model for the public administration, favoring transparency and accountability given its structure and Internet platform. The Observatory has carried out monitoring exercises in eight states; this grant would allow it to extend the monitoring to include performance evaluations, particularly regarding the improvement of medical attention to women. It would also allow the Observatory to verify the resources bought through this agreement, as well as strengthen the local capacities of civil society organizations to monitor and evaluate public policies.

The Center for Social Audit at Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS) was created in 2008 with the mission of supporting civil society organizations (CSOs) to develop skills to conduct social audits of public service delivery programs, especially those targeting poor Mexicans. The Center does that by helping CSOs identify opportunities to improve public social programs and by facilitating collaborative relationships with government officials to increase the social impact of public investments. We recommend support to the Center for continuing to offer specialized training in social auditing to CSOs, as well as technical assistance on the use of access-to-information regulations, budget tracking tools, and publicly available impact evaluations so that their audits could be used to improve service delivery in their communities.

The Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, a Mexican public university, hosts the Center for Social Audit, an research center focused on generating evidence about how citizen participation in the policy process can be improved. Providing technical assistance, funding, and academic research, the Center works throughout Mexico supporting small, local organizations working to improve citizen oversight of public service delivery and government spending. This project will allow the Center to document and review the impact of five years of funding and technical assistance activities. Additionally, the project will permit the Center to undergo an external evaluation to focus their future work on improving citizen oversight in Mexico.