Trust and satisfaction with public services

Trust in public institutions and satisfaction with public services are important outcomes of the quality of public governance. They reflect people’s perceptions of government competence in designing and delivering policies and services, as well as expectations about the behaviour of public institutions and public officials. Satisfaction with public services and trust in public institutions – while not necessary outcomes of democratic governance – can enhance effective governance by fostering participation in public life, compliance with policies, and social cohesion.

In Mexico, satisfaction with the education system is in line with the LAC average and slightly higher than the LAC average for health and the judiciary systems. Satisfaction with the education system (67%) is in line with the LAC (66%) and OECD (67%) averages. Satisfaction with the healthcare sector is of 57%, higher than the LAC average (53%) but 11 percentage points (p.p.) below the OECD average (68%). Less than half of Mexicans are satisfied with the judiciary system (43%). This exceeds the LAC average by 5 p.p.

 Good governance for inclusiveness and sustainability

In an age of multiple crises, countries in Latin America and the Caribbean need to pursue good governance practices that foster inclusiveness and sustainability, crucial for promoting prosperity and democratic resilience. Key actions include building on democratic strengths, such as enhancing stakeholder engagement in decision making and promoting representation and inclusion in public workforce. Additionally, efforts should focus on reinforcing key competences to deliver inclusive and sustainable growth, including budgeting and public procurement approaches that support the green transition. Safeguarding against threats to democratic values demands that effective public integrity rules and robust regulation against undue influence be maintained.

Budget management practices, such as green budgeting, can help face the climate crisis and achieve environmental goals. Green budgeting mechanisms include institutional arrangements to assess the environmental impacts of budgetary and fiscal policies, methods for evaluating their consistency, mechanisms to enhance transparency and accountability, and an enabling environment for green budgeting. Only a few countries in LAC have adopted green budgeting mechanisms and their implementation could be made more effective.

Mexico, one of the few countries with green budgeting mechanisms, has the highest score on the green budgeting index among the five LAC countries with green budgeting practices, with a score of 0.43, on a 0-1 scale. Mexico has comparatively high scores in three of the four dimensions of the index, with enabling environment being its strongest dimension (0.16) but has room for improvement in accountability and transparency, where it scores of 0.02 out of a maximum of 0.25.

Public procurement – the purchase of goods, services and works by governments and state-owned enterprises – averaged 17.4% of total government expenditure in Latin America and the Caribbean countries in 2021. Public administrations are increasingly adopting public procurement as a strategic policy instrument to promote social objectives, for example to strengthen sustainability and environmental responsibility, by favouring green procurement and responsible business conduct, and inclusiveness, by incentivising the participation of different individuals and business groups as suppliers.

Mexico does not have strategies to promote green public procurement or responsible business conduct, nor to pursue the participation of SMEs, in public procurement processes. In comparison, 14 LAC countries have a central government strategy to promote the participation of SMEs in public procurement, 9 countries for green public procurement, and 7 for responsible business conduct.

Meaningful engagement with stakeholders in decision making helps to improve the design and public acceptance of public policies and services. The OECD's Regulatory Policy and Governance Index (iREG) assesses stakeholder engagement in the development of subordinate regulations (those approved by the head of government, ministries or the cabinet). This index measures countries’ performance in systematically involving stakeholders in public decision making, the use of tools, the transparency of their consultations, and their oversight and quality control. Between 2019 and 2022, 8 out of 11 surveyed LAC countries (73%) improved their iREG score on stakeholder engagement.

Mexico has one of the highest scores among LAC countries on the iREG index for stakeholder engagement for developing subordinate regulations. Its overall score of 3.15 in 2022, on a 0-4 scale, is higher than the LAC (1.85) and OECD (2.14) averages. Mexico scores highly on the methodology (0.81 out of a maximum score of 1), oversight and quality control (0.81) and systematic adoption (0.80) dimensions, with room for improvement in the transparency dimension, where it scores 0.73.

A diverse public sector workforce is essential for promoting representation and inclusion of underrepresented and vulnerable groups. It strengthens government performance by driving innovation and contributing to tailored public services to meet the community's needs. Governments can use policies and targets to recruit and retain under-represented groups in the workforce

Mexico has policies in place for the inclusion of people with disabilities and young professionals in the public workforce at the federal level, but no specific targets. Mexico lacks both policies and targets for indigenous representation. In comparison, among the surveyed LAC countries, 10 out of 15 have targets for people with disabilities and 4 countries have targets for young professionals and for indigenous people.

Lobbying has long been a part of democracy, as it facilitates the representation of a range of interests and helps identify the impact that policies will have on diverse groups. However, public policies suffer if lobbying practices are not transparent or regulated allowing interest groups to monopolise influence, manipulate public opinion, sway government decisions and ultimately hinder the effective implementation of policies. For lobby regulations to be effective, governments need to oversee compliance with them, and impose sanctions when there are breaches. As of 2022, three of the six surveyed LAC countries (50%) regulate lobbying by defining lobbying activities and actors. Most LAC countries, however, lack institutions and frameworks to oversee lobbying practices, and fail to investigate breaches.

Mexico defines lobbying activities in its regulatory framework, including which actors are considered lobbyists. However, it has no body in charge of overseeing the transparency of lobbying activities and has not carried out any investigations into non-compliance with lobbying regulations during the last calendar year.

 Use and management of public resources

To make meaningful progress toward inclusive and sustainable growth, governments need to manage their existing resources strategically. From a fiscal perspective, this entails balancing how much the government spends and collects. From a human resource perspective, it means strengthening the capacity and skills of public employees and creating a public workforce and elected public officials who represent all the people they serve.

Public finances in the LAC region show modest positive signs, after a stark deterioration in 2020. This downturn was due to emergency measures taken to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, along with measures to support businesses and people to manage its impacts. Fiscal balances - the difference between a government’s revenues and its expenditures in a year - had broadly recovered to pre-COVID levels by 2022 across Latin America and the Caribbean. However, economic recovery remains fragile.

In 2022, Mexico had a fiscal deficit of 4.3% of GDP, larger than the average across LAC countries (3.4%), and an increase from 2.3% in 2019. Government revenue represented 24.2% of Mexico's GDP in 2022, compared to 31.5% on average in LAC countries and 39.7% in OECD countries. This ratio of revenue relative to GDP has increased from 23% in 2019.

Government debt can be used to finance both current expenditure and investments but comes at a cost in the form of interest payments. Debt as a share of GDP increased during the COVID-19 pandemic in the LAC region due to increased expenditure and loss of tax revenues, and in 2022 still remained 2 p.p. above its 2019 level.

In 2022, Mexico’s government debt amounted to 54.1% of its GDP, below the LAC average of 66.3%. Its debt level has increased from 51.9% of GDP in 2019.

Public employees are at the forefront of policy design and formulation and the delivery of public services. The share of public employment varies significantly across the LAC region, ranging from under 5% of total employment to over 20%.

In 2022, public employment in Mexico amounted to 12% of total employment, equal to the LAC average, and lower than the OECD average of 21%. Public employment in Mexico has remained steady between 2018 and 2022.

Equal representation of women and men in the public sector is a benchmark for measuring progress towards gender equality, diversity and better representation. In 2021, more than half of the employees in the public sector in LAC countries were women (51.5%), with wide differences among countries. However, women are often under-represented in managerial positions in the region, in 2022, on average women held 43% of senior management positions, with large differences among countries.

The share of women in public sector management in Mexico is below the LAC average for senior and middle management roles. Women account for 52.6% of public employment in Mexico but hold just 26.3% of senior management positions, considerably lower than the LAC average of 43.4%. At middle management level, women hold 38% of posts, below the LAC average of 42.2%.

 Figure notes

Data on public finance and economics are from the IMF World Economic Outlook (WEO) database (October 2023), which is based on the Government Finance Statistics Manual (GFSM) and were extracted on 3 November 2023. For the OECD averages data were based on the System of National Accounts (SNA) and were extracted from the Government at a Glance online database representing the last available update: 5 January 2024.

Fiscal balance, also referred to as net lending (+) or net borrowing (-) of general government, is calculated as total government revenues minus total government expenditures.

Data on public employment are derived from the International Labour Organization (ILO) ILOSTAT database and were extracted on 17 February 2023. Data are based on the Labour Force Survey. Public sector employment covers employment in the government sector plus employment in publicly owned resident enterprises and companies.

LAC and OECD averages refer to the unweighted average with the exception of public finance indicators.

For more information see www.oecd.org/publication/government-at-a-glance-lac/2024/