Mexico
Mexico’s international development co-operation (IDC) promotes a comprehensive set of social, economic and environmental actions in line with the 2030 Agenda. It constitutes a permanent policy enshrined in the country’s laws. The Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation (AMEXCID) co-ordinates the federal government’s IDC. It is responsible for institutionalising the necessary instruments and tools to plan, monitor and evaluate result-oriented actions, operating under the principles of transparency and effectiveness.
Mexico is engaged in multiple modalities, delivered mostly through South-South and triangular co-operation projects and mainly directed to Latin America and the Caribbean, with a special focus on Central America’s northern region. Mexico seeks to contribute to the sustainable human development of partner countries and to strengthen the effective management of its development co-operation through multi-stakeholder partnerships, including, for example, with partners from the private sector, civil society, academia, local governments and international organisations. This approach led to the adoption of a toolkit to manage partnerships with multiple stakeholders, launched in 2021. In various international forums, Mexico advocates for the systematisation of South-South and triangular co-operation practices and for adapting the internationally agreed upon development Effectiveness Principles to the realities of the Global South.
Mexico is an Adherent to the OECD Recommendation of the Council for Development Co-operation Actors on Managing the Risk of Corruption and to the Recommendation of the Council on Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development. Mexico hosted the first High-level Meeting of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation, has been both a co-chair and a member of its Steering Committee, and is a founding member of the core group of the Global Partnership Initiative on Effective Triangular Co-operation.
Mexico, as the main proponent of the Comprehensive Development Plan1 with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, has committed to invest USD 77 million in development projects in these three countries. The main objective is to raise the living standards and well-being of the migration-prone population and to help transform the southern states of Mexico and northern Central America into a peaceful and prosperous region. With this effort, Mexico is reinforcing its existing commitment to international and regional development while seeking to strengthen its co-operation and deepen its historical ties with these countries.
Additionally, another important partnership has been established between the Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation (AMEXCID) and the United States Agency for International Development to support the region in tackling the root causes of increased undocumented migration flows, including unaccompanied children and youth.
Mexico reached its preliminary goal of reaching 20 000 beneficiaries in El Salvador and Honduras through two initial programmes: 1) promoting sustainable agriculture in specific rural areas; and 2) assisting young people in building competencies to enter the formal labour market in urban and suburban areas. These programmes will also be applied in Belize and Cuba.
Another important programme in favour of this region is “Mesoamerica Sin Hambre” (Mesoamerica Without Hunger). This is a triangular co-operation initiative jointly led by AMEXCID and the Food and Agriculture Organization, which aims at closing gaps at a territorial level regarding food and nutritional security and rural development, with an inclusive focus and a human rights approach to the benefit of the Mesoamerican countries.2
Moreover, AMEXCID is currently co-ordinating 431 international development co-operation projects: 222 to foster national public policies, 198 bilateral and regional South-South co-operation projects, and 11 through triangular co-operation.3
← 1. The Comprehensive Development Plan is elaborated by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, whose fundamental purpose is to formulate a diagnosis, offer recommendations to advance toward a new style of development and generate a new vision regarding the complexity of the migratory process in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Mexico is the proponent and executor of the plan, which also includes the south-eastern region of Mexico as a key recipient area of immigration.
← 2. Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.
← 3. https://infoamexcid.sre.gob.mx/consejo/media/documents/0eU2r_021222.pdf.
According to OECD estimates, based on publicly available information, bilateral development co-operation from Mexico amounted to USD 16.6 million in 2019 (latest data available).
Mexico accounts for its development co-operation through a self-developed methodology1 (with the support of the OECD Development Assistance Committee [DAC]), reflecting the specific characteristics of South-South co-operation and, more recently, adding triangular co-operation with multiple stakeholders. Using this methodology of valuing South-South co-operation, preliminary figures for Mexico’s development co-operation totalled USD 192.25 million in 2020, and USD 102.4 million in 2019, down from USD 214.5 million in 2018. The 2020 quantification exercise is still ongoing and, for the first time, will include peacekeeping operations supported by Mexico; the 2019 data are the latest available.
Mexico reacted quickly in aligning its South-South and triangular co-operation programmes to its partners’ new reality and priorities when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020. By December 2021, Mexico had donated over 1.3 million vaccine doses, mainly to Central America and the Caribbean, with the support of the country’s private sector.2 Mexico also received support from other countries and international organisations to tackle the effects of the pandemic. In partnership with other countries and multilateral organisations, Mexico is actively drawing lessons from how countries collectively managed or mismanaged the COVID-19 crisis to better prepare for future pandemics. Mexico is a member of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations multilateral initiative that promotes the production and distribution of vaccines for developing countries.
Mexico is an observer of the International Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (TOSSD) Task Force. As a provider of South-South co-operation, Mexico started reporting on TOSSD for the first time in 2022 on activities in 2020. In 2020, Mexico reported USD 265.2 million in support of sustainable development, of which USD 139.2 million (52%) was cross-border resources to TOSSD recipients and USD 126 million (48%) through regional and global expenditures supporting sustainable development. Twenty-nine Mexican entities participated in the 2020 TOSSD reporting.
Source: https://tossd.online/.
As an observer, Mexico participates in the TOSSD Task Force. Mexico has been actively participating in the multilateral construction of two “new metrics” for development co-operation: 1) a common and voluntary definition of South-South co-operation (SSC); and 2) the design of a metric of TOSSD:
1. The work to construct the first stemmed from Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 17.3 which calls for mobilising financial resources for sustainable development from multiple sources, including SSC. As a common definition of SSC did not exist, the UN statistical body in charge of creating the relevant indicator took up the challenge to propose one. Mexico and other prominent countries of the global South participated actively in this body. Their work resulted in an agreed, voluntary conceptual framework for measuring SSC, adopted by the UN Statistical Commission and the General Assembly in 2022. Now Mexico has begun to adapt its quantification methodology to match this framework; for instance, the later quantification effort (2020) considers peacekeeping operations and development co-operation through the innovative mechanism of conditional cash transfers. (see box above). In 2023, Mexico expects to work with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in a pilot to test this framework.
2. TOSSD seeks to capture all official development flows, including concessional and non-concessional, official development assistance (ODA), and SSC flows, to reach the SDGs. The initiative to construct TOSSD was born in the DAC. Yet, since 2017, the design of this new metric passed to a more inclusive task force formed by DAC and non-DAC countries and a civil society organisation representative. Mexico has participated in this body from the outset: first as a member and after a gap, since 2021, as an observer. In particular, Mexico presented an initiative to construct the TOSSD recipient list on the basis of multidimensional criteria beyond the widely criticised unidimensional criteria of gross domestic product per capita still used for ODA. The final design of TOSSD -including the criteria to construct its list of recipients- is yet to be concluded.
Contributions to individual Sustainable Development Goals
Mexico’s support to sustainable development mainly contributed to progress on SDG 1 (no poverty), SDG 17 (partnerships), SDG 4 (quality education) and SDG 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions).
Source: https://tossd.online/.
Geographic focus
In 2020, USD 56.7 million (40.7%) of Mexico’s cross-border resources to TOSSD recipients were allocated to individual countries and regions. In total, Mexico’s cross-border flows reached 62 countries in 2020. Almost all of this support was provided to recipients in Latin America and the Caribbean (39.6%), most notably Colombia, Honduras and Cuba. Partners in Asia and Africa received 1% of Mexico’s cross-border resources. Nearly three-quarters (USD 82.5 million) of Mexico’s TOSSD were unallocable by region.
Source: https://tossd.online/.
Sectoral distribution
In 2021, almost all of Mexico’s cross-border resources to TOSSD recipients targeted the multisector (USD 89.2 million) and social infrastructure and services (USD 49.8 million). Mexico’s support to social infrastructure and services mostly targeted education, government and civil society.
Source: https://tossd.online/.
Source: https://tossd.online/.
Regional and global expenditures in support of sustainable development (not cross-border)
In 2020, Mexico extended USD 126 million in support of international public goods, development enablers and global challenges, accounting for 48% of its TOSSD.
Most of these expenditures (85%) are core and voluntary contributions to multilateral organisations and support to peacekeeping missions.
Mexico engages in triangular co-operation. According to AMEXCID records, Mexico engaged in 11 triangular co-operation projects in 2022; the main areas were agriculture and livestock, the environment, and strengthening institutions and public policies. Data from the Ibero-American General Secretariat show that Mexico engaged in 25 triangular co-operation projects in 2019; the main areas were agriculture and livestock, the environment, strengthening institutions and public policies, and legal and judicial development and human rights. Learn more about triangular co-operation and Mexico’s number of projects through the OECD’s voluntary triangular co-operation project repository. Mexico is a core group member of the Global Partnership Initiative on Effective Triangular Co-operation.
The 2011 Law on International Co-operation for Development (LCID, by its abbreviation in Spanish) mandated the federal government to set up a national system for IDC, including an agency (AMEXCID); a national Programme of International Co-operation for Development (PROCID); a National Registry of International Development Co-operation (RENCID); and a budgetary account, the International Development Co-operation Trust (this was, however, eliminated by Congress in 2021, so resources are now being allocated through the annual budget).
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has overall responsibility for Mexico’s development co-operation agenda in its dual role as provider and beneficiary of co-operation, which is co-ordinated by AMEXCID and implemented by a wide variety of public institutions under the premise of development co-operation centred on people and based on results, transparency and effectiveness. AMEXCID is also responsible for generating the tools necessary to programme, co-ordinate, implement, monitor, report on and evaluate Mexico’s IDC.
To meet LCID provisions, AMEXCID co-ordinates the data collection platform RENCID, in which government agencies register their IDC actions, including: technical and scientific co-operation projects; scholarships granted to foreigners; and monetary contributions to international organisations, financial co-operation and humanitarian aid provided by Mexico.
Moreover, Mexico discloses IDC data to the public through the annual Mexican IDC Quantification Report, based on the RENCID database and the Co-operation Catalogue, which collects qualitative and quantitative data on the supply of development co-operation.
AMEXCID prepared Mexico’s PROCID for the period 2021-24 in consultation with relevant agencies of the federal government, and for the first time with input from civil society organisations, academia and the private sector, keeping at the centre of its goals progress on achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The latest PROCID was published in Mexico’s Official Gazette in December 2021.
Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation (AMEXCID): https://www.gob.mx/amexcid
AMEXCID (2020), 2020 Cooperation Report, Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation, https://infoamexcid.sre.gob.mx/consejo/media/documents/29Ogn_Informe%20Anual%20AMEXCID%202020.pdf.
AMEXCID (2019), Monitoring Exercise in South-South Co-operation Effectiveness: Final Report, Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation, https://www.gob.mx/cms/uploads/attachment/file/447837/EJERCICIO_DE_MONITOREO_2019-eng.pdf.
Mexico’s approach to monitoring the effectiveness of development co-operation: https://www.effectivecooperation.org/content/unique-approach-monitoring-effectiveness-development-co-operation-lessons-mexico-0.
Member of the OECD since 1994. Not a member of the OECD Development Assistance Committee.
Observer to the TOSSD Task Force. Reporting to TOSSD since 2022, on 2020 data.
Notes
← 1. The Mexican methodology for the quantification of international development co-operation includes disbursements on technical and scientific co-operation; scholarships for foreign students from developing countries; co-operation channeled through multilateral institutions focused on promoting development; reimbursable financial co-operation (only the grant element of loans); other non-reimbursable financial co-operation; and humanitarian aid. It also includes the value of the technical co-operation based on the exchange of public servants who share their experience on the implementation of public policies, institutional or technical management models, or technology developed and/or improved in Mexico.
← 2. Belize, the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Dominica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Paraguay, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.