miércoles, 23 de diciembre de 2009

Mexico’s Unhealthy Silence

Politicians in Mexico evade accountability on results and everyone is complacent and silent. This is more patent when the issues are insecurity and crime.

The National Security Council (NSC) – formed by Mexico’s 31 state governors and presided by President Felipe Calderon- does not publish crime rates. Most State governments either follow suit or publish partial and obsolete reports. The only exceptions are Sonora and Nuevo León.

Public statistics have to be retrieved though the Transparency Institute on a case-by-case basis. The process is cumbersome and slow. Most of the time it is unsuccessful.

Last year citizens in Mexico City and other major cities marched on the streets to demand action against insecurity. The movement was enthusiastic and massive but unfortunately did not produce any visible outcome. Both crime rates and insecurity perceptions remain high.

How do we know? After many months of hard work, we have been able to gather national and state crime statistics. By the end of September, we had historical and 2009 data and were able to draw up a complete report. We also included unreported crime and insecurity perception rates from ICESI: a well-regarded independent non-governmental organization that has been researching these issues for several years. We published the report on our website. We sent it to the President’s Office and the press. This was a benchmark. No one had done it before, at least not publicly.

What happened? Nothing. Silence. We were astounded. We had believed this would trigger strategic turbulence in the political system but the system proved more resilient than estimated. One national newspaper director confided that he had a “good relationship with authorities in exchange for confidential information”, meaning he did not want to discomfort his contacts. “Confidential information” for this director is what developed systems consider public information.

Last week, the NSC met and although no hard crime rate data was presented, the ICESI survey was shown to the Council. Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico City’s Governor complained about the evaluation; he was followed by Enrique Peña-Nieto, a powerful PRI Governor from the neighboring Estado de México, and the Governors of Tabasco and Tamaulipas. They argued that their efforts were not taken into account in the report. But the report is not about their efforts. It’s a survey on perceptions of insecurity! All of these states show red lights in our report. Peña-Nieto later declared he would not be distracted with surveys. Mexican politicians –it seems- will keep on spending great amounts of public money to promote their efforts with no regard whatsoever to the outcomes.

President Calderón backed down and agreed to create a commission within the NSC to study the matter further and to propose another method of evaluation. Really? No media continued to pressure. No NGO complained. No controversy. No problem: No pasa nada. Is this the best Mexico can do?

Although unreported crime is high in Mexico and far from the 40% to 50% rates of New Zealand, Australia, Western Europe, Canada, USA and Japan, there is no reason to hide data and manage it like private property. As in those other countries, crime rates should be published on a monthly basis for the media, the NGOs and the general public, so as to evaluate performance.

This is what the northern state of Sonora has been doing in the past 3 years with remarkable success. Crime rates have gone down. Except for homicides, both property and violent crimes in Sonora are anywhere from 10% to 50% lower than previously. Sonora is no piece of cake. It is surrounded by violent states like Chihuahua, Baja California and Sinaloa - all of them seats of the toughest drug-cartels in the country.

The bottom line: accountability is a positive attractor for crime reduction, particularly when information is used to focus on populations at risk and creates teamwork between authorities and the community. But once again, no one talks about Sonora’s prevention-system. No one visits Sonora to benchmark its success story.

According to the NSC, kidnapping -a very sensitive issue in Mexico- has gone down. But our report shows different: there is an 82% national increase in 2009. Extortion, another organized crime-related issue, has gone up by 42%.

The Global Competitive Report 2008-2009, which ranks 139 countries, shows Mexico dropping from 52nd to 60th place in a one-year period. Two main factors causing the decline are rampant violence (ranked 123 of a total of 139) and weak institutions (ranked 97) Transparency is ranked at 94. Will they try to silence this messenger too?

Accountability in Mexico has improved regarding public expenditure, but performance accountability has a long way to go. Very seldom do politicians open up to outcome evaluation. And so change does not come from the top - it comes from the periphery, from leaders within the community, from the unbiased press, from the independent NGOs, from the international evaluators. In short, from turbulence caused by the marginal people, the outsiders of the system, the non-conformers.

People marching on the streets and lighting candles create a moving scene. But unfortunately it is unproductive unless the public really starts taking a close look at the results.

To see the full crime-report, go to www.prominix.com

Santiago Roel

Monterrey, Mexico December 2009.

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