MIDTERM RESULTS OF THE NATIONAL CRUSADE AGAINST
HUNGER
Ever since the
federal government implemented the National Crusade against Hunger (Cruzada
Nacional contra el Hambre) in January 2013 (Crusade) as a core idea of social
development policy focused on the population living in extreme food poverty,
the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (Consejo
Nacional de Evaluación de la Política de Desarrollo Social, CONEVAL) has set
out, as with all social development policies of the past, the need to evaluate
its different aspects.
With this
purpose in mind, in 2013, CONEVAL designed the General Scheme for the
Evaluation of the National Crusade against Hunger (2013-2019) (Esquema General
de Evaluación de la Cruzada Nacional Contra el Hambre) in order to generate
systematic information that allows the performance of the strategy to be
assessed from its very beginning and at least until 2019. Based on this scheme,
the Council has prepared several documents that evaluate the design and implementation
of the Crusade, which are available on the institutional website
(www.coneval.gob.mx).
Following up on
the General Scheme for Evaluation of the Crusade, this report on the midterm
results prepared by CONEVAL shows the results for the first half of the
six-year period with the intension of demonstrating its progress, strengths and
areas of opportunities based on elements like interinstitutional coordination
and the identification of basic needs of households associated with social
deprivations.
As such, this
Report on the midterm results of the Crusade considered the following core
ideas and studies:
· Interinstitutional coordination
· The changes made by the Ministry of Social Development (Secretaría
de Desarrollo Social, SEDESOL) to the Contribution Fund for Social
Infrastructure (Fondo de Aportaciones para la Infraestructura Social, FAIS) to
strengthen the coordination between levels of government.
· Study panel of households that were benefited by the Crusade
between 2013-2014 and 2015.
· Study that informs on the dynamic of the poverty indicators,
particularly extreme poverty, of the five municipalities that were chosen by
the CONEVAL for analysis of the results of the Crusade: Zinacantán, Chiapas;
Guachochi, Chihuahua; San Felipe del Progreso, State of Mexico, Mártir de
Cuilapan, Guerrero and Tehuacán, Puebla.
· Exploratory study on the impact of the Crusade which compares the
living conditions of the population serviced by the Crusade with the population
with similar characteristics that have not been aided in the framework of this
strategy.
Highlighted
among the progress and challenges identified is the following:
· The Crusade is aimed at a sub-group of the population living in
extreme poverty and this study has seen significant progress in the reduction
of social deprivations and extreme poverty based on proper coordination.
However, there is still the challenge of linking this with other strategies,
especially economic ones, in order to achieve sustained reductions in poverty.
· The Crusade is modifying the dynamics and routines of government
agencies at all three levels. Nevertheless, the effect is differentiated and
heterogeneous between the states.
· In terms of the analysis on the use of FAIS funds, it was found
that there was a change in the way resources were employed between 2014 and
2013. Specifically speaking, there was a greater allocation of resources to the
headings of water, sanitation and housing, as well as a reduction in the
heading of urbanization, which includes, among others, rural roads, highways
and similar projects.
· Regarding the FAIS catalog, which limits the construction and
improvement of roads, it would be worthwhile analyzing up to what point it
would be necessary to provide greater flexibility to this heading, given the
importance of better connectivity between zones as an additional step toward
helping to reduce social deprivations, particularly, in the dimensions of
education gap and deprived access to food, as well as contribute to economic
activities in remote areas.
· In relation to the results of the first stage of the Study Panel,
it found that significant progress was made on tackling the social deprivations
among the population serviced by one social program or another registered in
the Information System for Development (Sistema Información para el Desarrollo,
SIFODE) in the framework of the Crusade which resides in some of the initial
400 municipalities of the strategy.
· The results of the study panel revealed that all social
deprivations reduced between 2013-2014 and 2015. Among these, it is important
to point out the reductions in the deprivations of access to health services
and food. In the population the Study Panel looked at, deprivation due to
access to health services went from 32.9 percent between 2013 and 2014 to 9.2
in 2015. Meanwhile, deprivation due to access to food went from 100 to 42.5
percent in this group of people.
· The results of the Study Panel cannot be generalized over the
entire population that lives in towns and communities where the Crusade
operates since the information collected by the survey only corresponds to the
population directly serviced by the programs registered in the SIFODE under the
framework of the Crusade.
· The construction process of the Study Panel sample helped to
identify some areas of opportunity in the SIFODE database which include, among
others, having mechanisms in place that guarantee the quality, validity and
reliability of the information collected by the Single Survey of Socioeconomic
Information (Cuestionario Único de Información Socioeconómico, CUIS); the
integration of the information on programs that form part of the Crusade and
the systemization of the information collected in order to guarantee the
availability of records of address and geographical location.
· As for the results found in the five municipalities in which the
study on the Crusade took a deeper look, the figures reported suggested
reductions in extreme poverty in all of them and progress toward the reduction
of different social deprivations between 2010 and 2014. The deprivation that
recorded the greatest progress in magnitude corresponds to access to health
services, followed by deprivations due to access to basic household services
and food.
· Positive changes were also found in the space of economic
wellbeing: the percentage of the population with income below the Minimum
Wellbeing Line fell in four municipalities. Only the municipality of Tehuacán
showed an upward trend.
· The improvements both in the space of social wellbeing and income
are reflected in the reduction of poverty and extreme poverty in: Zinacantán,
Guachochi, Mártir de Cuilapan and San Felipe del Progreso.
· The percentage of persons living in extreme food poverty also
showed a significant decrease between 2010 and 2014 of more than 9.5 percentage
points in four municipalities, with the exception of Tehuacán.
· The information also suggests that the zones that are not priority
attention areas, mainly urban, non-indigenous zones where people live in
conditions of extreme food poverty, represent a challenge for government action
in terms of the types and mechanisms of specific interventions that must be
designed.
· The exploratory study on the impact of the Crusade on the other
hand revealed a significant effect on the reduction of extreme poverty of two percentage
points. However, no effect was evident on the indicator of deprivation due to
lack of access to food.
· Significant effects were also observed on the reduction of
deprivations due to housing quality and space, and the lack of basic housing
services, mainly derived from the population serviced since the first stage
(2013).
· The results of the exploratory study on the impact of the Crusade
are congruent with the reduction in the percentage of the population with
social deprivations shown in the 2014 national poverty measurement and suggest
that the Crusade has contributed to reducing the existing gap in the levels of
extreme poverty in the treated population and the compared population.
· In view of the information available, the results found are mainly
derived from the population treated at the very beginning of the Crusade in
2013, which has received accumulated treatment for eighteen months, therefore
it is hoped that the effects attributable to the Crusade may be even greater
and visible in the serviced population in subsequent stages.
· The analysis suggests that the strategy of focusing the
coordinated support of several agencies and levels of government at specific
households living in extreme food poverty (a sub-group of extreme poverty) will
have positive results when coordination is adequate.
· Despite these significant advances, it is vital to ask whether it
is possible to expand these mechanisms for identifying households through CUIS
and SIFODE on a national scale with the same level of intensity in order to
pinpoint the target for actions and funds of the programs that make up the
Crusade.
· The study suggests that social policy has concentrated its efforts
on reducing social deprivations. In particular, the actions of the Crusade have
focused support on households living in extreme poverty (with a target
population of seven million people) and has managed to reduce the social
deprivations in this population. Nevertheless, strategies must be found to
achieve reductions in the widespread poverty that affects around 55 million
people. There is no doubt that these strategies go hand in hand with schemes to
improve the economic activity of the country as a whole: strategies that
improve real salaries, productivity, investment and price stability in order to
generate a sustained increase in buying power.
See the Full Report
Press Release
The links to the attached requirements and documents can be
accessed at:
· 
The study panel analysis
databases
· The databases on the
analysis of the five municipalities
· Information of Annex 4
· The databases on the
analysis of FAIS funds
· The databases on the
exploratory analysis of the impact of the Crusade
·
The Comprehensive
Evaluation of the Productive Capacity of Rural Households