Evaluation of the application of the methodological design

Based on the interviews and on the documents mentioned, a review of the processes for summoning and institutional participation was done, as well as of the results from training, monitoring and validation, in addition to an evaluation of the functioning and contributions of the online strategic planning system, with the aim of identifying the good choices and limitations that came up.

Evaluation of the methodological adherence in the elaboration of the PECEs

For the elaboration of the PECEs, the IICA designed the methodological route:

To evaluate the methodological adherence of each PECE, an indicator was designed that averaged the value of the indexes of congruence corresponding to the first five stages of the methodological route. The indexes of congruence are, in turn, the simple average of the marks given to the variables (null 0, partial 1, complete 2) shown in Table 1.

Evaluation of the concurrent territorial projects (PTCs)

For the elaboration of the PECEs, the methodological route suggested by IICA includes as next-to-last point the identification of concurrent territorial projects in the state. For their conceptual valuation, of pertinence, structure and detail, three indicators were designed that are the simple average of the marks given to the variables shown in Table 2 (null=0, partial=1, complete=2).

In addition, for the valuation of the PTCs, the budget foreseen for the PTCs was broken down into state and federal, and how much the state budget of the PTCs represents in the state programs was calculated, and what the federal budget of the PTCs of the budget that is assigned to the state via federal programs and agreements represents.

Evaluation of the application of the methodological design

Summoning and institutional participation

Summoning the state offices to attend the regional workshops was carried out by the Ministry of Agricultural Development of each state, at the request of the IICA, and with the support of SAGARPA and AMSDA. The summons was made with little anticipation and the agency through which contact was established in the state did not have the impact expected in terms of attendance. The lack of communication and political will restricted the participation of the offices.

According to the interviews performed, the attendance of participants to the state workshop and the work meetings where monitoring was carried out for the elaboration of the concurrent territorial projects (PTCs) was medium to high. However, despite the presence of the institutions, the problem consisted in the rotation of the officers who attended from each office, which restricted the ability to reach agreements.

Another element to consider was the level of the officers who attended. In more than 50 % of the states, medium level officers participated, not decision makers, situation that limited the development of the process, particularly in the phase of budget building. In some cases they did not have the information necessary or the knowledge of the normative framework that would back the actions of concurrence.

The contributions carried out by the offices, in terms of opinion and proposals had a valuation of medium to high, although there were three states with low valuation. This situation is explained due to the lack of interest of participants, a shallow perception of the exercise of planning without consequences, low expectations of permanence of many federal officers facing the change of government ^{(Vidal and Noriega, 1996)}, or because with their level of responsibility they did not have in-depth information to specify proposals.

The online strategic planning system

The online strategic planning system for the elaboration of state PECs had as its main objective to be a planning tool for the elaboration of the concurrent strategic projects of fiscal exercises or later government periods.

Building the instrument includes an analysis and diagnosis of the demands of the agricultural and livestock sector, as well as the institutional offer around the sector and the identification of alternatives or concurrent projects in the state.

The SPE design was carried out hand in hand with the project of the methodology to be followed for the elaboration of state PECs, which meant offering the system in the state and regional workshops when it was still under construction.

The system integrated the information generated; however, some problems came up in the PECE elaboration process: greater formal training about the use of SPE; loss of information captured; constant modifications to the design of the SPE; methodological errors that made it difficult to align the axes of intervention, results, strategic lines, goals and indicators with planning instruments at the state and federal levels, etc.

These restrictions generated scarce appropriation of the SPE as a tool for decision making by state officers and for the system to be valuated as an operative instrument.

Evaluation of the methodological adherence in the elaboration of the PECEs

Concurrent territorial vision (VTC, for its initials in Spanish)

In general, the concurrent territorial vision of the fifteen states has an orientation towards the rural sector, which is explained by the spirit of the PEC that is sustained on the Sustainable Rural Development Law. In this sense, the visions built on the planning process do not correspond in their totality to the vision of the States, captured in their PED. A sectorial vision about territoriality prevails, with a bias towards the agricultural and livestock sector on the rural scope, although, according to Martínez-Carrasco et al. (2013), the policies of backing for the agrarian sector of traditional cut (sectorial) do not have an influence on the wellbeing of the rural population.

The results indicate that a strong predominance of offices like state and federal SAGARPA, followed by SEMARNAT and other organizations such as Colegio de Postgraduados (COLPOS), National Institute of Agricultural and Livestock Forest Research (Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales Agrícolas y Pecuarias, INIFAP), INCA Rural, National Commission on Arid Areas (Comisión Nacional de la Zonas Áridas, CONAZA), Shared Risk Trust (Fideicomiso de Riesgo Compartido, FIRCO), among others.

To undertake actions in the rural scope it is indispensable to overcome the sectorial vision in favor of a territorial approach that privileges the articulation of integral policies, implying joint actions by different institutions, social actors and private actors from the local, regional and national spheres ^{(Sepúlveda et al., 2003)}.

The challenge consists in making operative the actions between offices and not only implementing the concurrence in a budgetary exercise, since the criticism expressed after years of analysis points out that the government agencies act independently ^{(Tacuba, 2016)}, causing overlaps in the actions and, therefore, wastefulness of public resources.

Tree of problems

The strategic axes of the PECE and the problems identified have an acceptable congruence with regards to the axes and problems set out in the PEDs. However, the trees of problems address broad concepts that can be valid for most of the states and turn out to be similar among them. In general, the level of causality between effect (central problem) and primary and secondary causes (vertical logic of the MML) is acceptable; however, two restrictions came up:

Tree of objectives

Although all the PECEs suggest relevant and justified strategic action lines, these are not sufficient and adequate to achieve the purposes nor is it clear that they are sufficient to achieve the mission that contributes to achieving the strategic axes. The explanation is in the sectorial bias (agricultural and livestock) of the interventions proposed, which restricts the participation of several offices capable of influencing the actions expected. In addition, the lack of alignment with the PEDs and federal PEC is evident, reflecting the inertia of planning on the sidelines of the higher level plans.

Logical Framework Matrix by axis of intervention

The results show lower marks and higher dispersion than in the other indicators. According to the facilitators interviewed, this is explained because this stage was the most difficult to develop due to the degree of complexity implied in establishing the goals, indicators and assumptions, as well as the lack of awareness of the methodology by the participants.

There is conceptual confusion between goals and indicators, which are not established correctly; that is, they do not correspond to the components and do not comply with the definition of indicator. Most of them are of management (achieved/programmed), while results and strategic results must be included in the level of objectives to which they correspond. With regards to the budgets, most are acceptable, but they refer primarily to the availability of resources and the political or institutional will; however, they should not be limited to those aspects.

Strategic territorial matrix (STM)

Although the strategic territorial matrix addresses axes of intervention that focus on the causes of non-sustainable development of the rural and fishing sector, pointed out by the Diagnosis of the Rural and Fishing Sector of México ^{(SAGARPA-FAO, 2012)}, such as low growth of agricultural, livestock and fishing activities, poverty of rural families, degradation of natural resources, unfavorable economic environment, and weak institutional framework, not enough components are defined and properly aligned to those axes, so dispersion is generated, affecting the later formulation of the PTCs.

Global vision of methodological adherence of the PECEs

The index of methodological application was made up of five indicators of congruence that correspond to the stages of the methodology for the elaboration of the state PECs, whose results are presented in Table 3. The states that show a higher index are Aguascalientes (0.78), Veracruz (0.77) and Sinaloa (0.76); the state with the lowest index was Campeche (0.60).

However, if we analyze the stages that give rise to the Index of methodological application it can be seen that the states of Campeche, Hidalgo and Nuevo León presented the minimum values (0.42) during the first methodological stage, which consisted in the definition of the concurrent territorial vision, due to problems of discrepancy between institutions due to the high degree of sectorization and scarce conceptualization of the vision in common.

There is greater definition in the construction of trees of problems under the logic of causality; the value of the index varied from a minimum of 0.58 (Aguascalientes and Baja California Sur), to a maximum of 0.92 (Campeche and San Luis Potosí). However, during the stage of definition of the tree of objectives, the index in general decreases, particularly because an exercise is done to align the strategic lines, results and strategic axes with the federal PEC and the PEDs, situation that presents problems of correspondence.

For the stage of elaboration of the logic framework matrices by intervention axis, the lowest indexes were obtained in Campeche (0.17), Oaxaca (0.33) Durango, San Luis Potosí, Tamaulipas and Zacatecas (0.50), because there were problems at the moment of defining the goals, indicators, verification means and assumptions for each component of each axis, in addition to the fact that an exercise of aligning with the goals and indicators of the federal PEC and the PEDs showed scarce correspondence between these elements.

Finally, the index of congruence of the STM presents an average value of 0.72 because the vertical logic is limited; that is, there is no specification of the components and as consequence the impacts for the achievement of the purposes and the mission are not justified.

Valuation of the concurrent territorial projects (PTCs)

Conceptual valuation

In general, the PTCs of all the states were valued as “regular”, with an average of 0.65; the least favored aspects in the valuation were: a) measurable impacts in the whole territory and, b) articulation between several sectors and dimensions of development; that is, the agricultural and livestock bias on fishing, aquatic and forestry themes is maintained. Another weak aspect of the projects is that the investment in public goods does not predominate; a considerable part of the projects are supports with fixed assets and subsidies for the acquisition of public goods, in addition to having few cases where the PTCs are defined with the participation of all the agencies involved, and not a single case where resources were budgeted by the institutions involved.

The hierarchical administrative structure in the states had a low impact in terms of the scarce participation of government offices, given that since the Ministry of Agricultural and Livestock Development was the actor that summoned, the obligatory character was not generated when considering that the planning exercise would be focused on technical-productive themes of competency for some agencies related to the countryside.

Valuation of appropriateness

Not all the PTCs contribute to the achievement of the mission, have some degree of complementarity between them, or have an important coverage of beneficiaries, which explains the variability in the valuations and shows an important area for improvement.

It is expected that the PTCs would be built taking into account transversal components of the intervention axes contained in the STM, so that the action of concurrence would be fostered when diverse offices intervened in each axis. However, an important part of the PTCs seek improvements only in the agricultural and livestock sector, minimizing the fishing, aquatic, forestry and social themes.

Valuation of the structure and detail

The structure and detail of the PTCs show a lower valuation, indicating a scarce level of specificity in the projects, in their components and activities, situation that forces the participating offices to work on a better definition for them, in order to achieve their execution in the short term and to establish the commitments to help the rest of the non-participating offices to become incorporated into the process. General methodological deficiencies in the projects were found, such as technical feasibility, financing or location, among others.

Budget analysis

The budgets of the PTCs indicate a greater financial load on the resources that come from the federation. This is explained by the intention of most of the states to use the PECEs to obtain extra resources and not as a redirection of their own spending.

Even so, in Aguascalientes the PTCs require federal resources of 217 % of the current federal budget, while Campeche and Coahuila would require allotting 98 % and 48 %, respectively, of the state budget to the sector. Values as high as these mean, in practice, that it is not feasible to finance the PTCs. In the rest of the states the financial load of their PTCs is lower than 12 % of their state budget, while the load of federal resources from the PTCs on the budget from the federation ranges between 85 % (Baja California Sur) and 5 % (Querétaro), with an average of 45 % (Table 4). This represents an important effort of reorientation of the spending to finance the PTCs, so an important effort of state political negotiation is required, both from the state and from the federation.

However, the possibility of a gradual development of the projects remains open, as well as the participation of other financial sources to give viability to the projects: therefore, it is necessary to elaborate them in greater detail, under a process of normative and budgetary negotiation that exceeds the attributions of the staff that elaborated the concurrent territorial projects.

Global analysis of the elaboration of the PECEs

The design of the PTCs showed the following deficiencies: i) lack of experience of the participants to elaborate the projects with the characteristics required; ii) scarce participation of decision makers; iii) high rotation of participants from the same state; and iv) lack of knowledge to elaborate budgets. This suggests the need for greater training for the participants in the elaboration of the PTCs; in order to be able to reach a greater appropriateness, it is recommended that the projects are set out with indicators and goals that allow implementing efficient evaluation mechanisms.

The evaluations contribute to improve the part of the design of the programs (objectives, goals, potential population and objective, focalization), the operation (amount and types of backing, executing offices, temporality), and the impacts expected (definition of indicators).

The advancement towards a public policy based on concurrence makes it necessary to try new formulas of doing politics and planning, such as “Governance”, a process of directing society, defined and executed in a shared manner of interdependence-association-coproduction-co-responsibility between the government and the private and social organizations ^{(Aguilar, 2010)}. This “Governance” would be sustained by a social concertation, whose result is a territorial pact (inter and intra classes and public-private) looking to endogenous development, consisting in the implementation of a development model that takes into account projects claimed from the (local) base in the territories ^{(Ortega, 2012)}.

A planning strategy from a local focus can detonate from the Municipal Councils for Sustainable Rural Development (Consejos Municipales de Desarrollo Rural Sustentables, CMDRS), whose mandates and actions are foreseen in the same LDRS where all the actors in the rural environment participate. A greater openness would need to be considered for the participation of other offices linked to the current dynamics in rural territories, where we observe sociocultural, economic, political changes from an approach of new rurality.