U.S.-Mexico Partnership for Municipal Development (1997-2003)

Through its implementation of the USAID-funded U.S.-Mexico Partnership for Municipal Development, ICMA contributed to the strengthening of democratic institutions and practices in Mexico with an emphasis on service delivery, performance measurement, and accountability.

The objectives of the U.S.-Mexico Partnership for Municipal Development were to:

  • Increase the capacity of Mexican municipalities to respond to the needs of their constituents by improving service delivery, including water, wastewater, and solid waste management and general local government management practices
  • Strengthen national municipal associations through technical assistance
  • Support national decentralization initiatives for improving local government services through policy reform
  • Enhance the participation of citizens in the local democratic process, with increased transparency in local government management.

Program Activities
Funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, ICMA activities involved:

  • Providing direct technical assistance to target municipalities on jointly defined topics: financial management and revenue generation, service delivery, citizen participation, and community policing
  • Providing first-hand learning opportunities for Mexican municipal officials through exchange visits with managers of U.S. cities
  • Disseminating lessons learned through seminars to newly elected officials
  • Developing tools for human resource management, including a certification program for municipal financial officers
  • Defining the options available for framing the discussion on fiscal decentralization
  • Helping the federal government streamline the loan application process for municipalities and identifying what technical assistance they need to improve their performance
  • Developing indicators for comparative performance measurement
  • Designing methodologies for improving government transparency and helping state auditors provide incentives to their government institutions to perform well
  • Helping strengthen municipal associations by providing assistance
  • Disseminating information through publications, seminars, and conferences.

Through this program, 55 Mexican municipal officials had the opportunity to learn first-hand how U.S. cities address municipal services. Forty-five U.S. city officials provided direct technical assistance to the Mexican municipalities. Areas of technical assistance included water and wastewater management, sanitation, municipal finance, citizen participation, and public safety and emergency management.

Program Results
The U.S.-Mexico Partnership for Municipal Development achieved the following results:

  • Passage of a law that creates a technical citizen committee to recognize good governance through the use of indicators reported by the state auditor to monitor the financial and operational performance of municipalities
  • Certification programs and norms for technical labor competencies to increase professionalism in local government
  • Consensus-based technical proposals for fiscal decentralization
  • Indicators that assess municipal institutional capacity, which guide differentiated technical assistance packages
  • Tools for rating transparency in municipal government
  • Case studies, best practices, and informational guides to improve transparency in local government and financial management
  • Technical assistance to associations and the Government of Mexico on development and implementation of municipal performance measurement programs
  • Programs for improving citizen participation.