Inauguration of the CLEAR Center for Latin America:
President Calderon Presides Over the Official Launch
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The President of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, presided over the official inauguration of the CLEAR Latin America Center on Monday, June 11, at the Official Residence in Los Pinos. The President announced that the CLEAR Center for the region will be housed at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), joining the four existing CLEAR Centers in China, India, Senegal, and South Africa. The President pledged that in addition to the funding that the CLEAR Latin America Center at CIDE will receive from CLEAR Initiative donors, the Mexican government will also support the center with $1.5 million over the next three years. He congratulated CIDE for having won the rigorous selection process, which included more than 20 other institutions of academic excellence from 7 countries in the region. The President also highlighted the need to standardize and systematize evaluations in order to improve public and budgeting policies and establish transparency and accountability mechanisms. He also stated, “The evaluation of public policies, the evaluation of government programs, is a task to which we should all be committed. Government and society should run side by side along the same path. We need citizens to participate actively in Mexico and in Latin America, academics should participate, and international organizations should participate and discuss these topics. This is one of the … many pieces of good news brought today by the inauguration of the CLEAR Center, at CIDE, in our dear Mexico.” To conclude, the President remarked that in edifying a culture of results among public officials and in professionalizing public policy, the whole of society wins. |
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The Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit, José Antonio Meade, also spoke. In his speech, he emphasized that the CLEAR Center represents a great opportunity for Mexico and countries in Latin America to support the transformation of the public administration. Edna Jaime, the representative for civil society through the organization Mexico Evaluates, emphasized that the establishment of the CLEAR Center in the region will provide resources and the necessary leverage for the pending agenda to move forward on a solid base with a mutual understanding of each stakeholder’s responsibility in the construction of an effective government management evaluation model.
Participants in the event included members of CIDE, as well as representatives from the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Policy (CONEVAL), the Secretariat of Public Works, the Federal Superior Auditing Office (ASF), and ambassadors and officials from international organizations, including the Director of the Office of Evaluation at the Inter-American Development Bank, who represented the Board of the CLEAR Initiative. The CLEAR Board is comprised of ten donors, including the African Development Bank; the Asian Development Bank; the Inter-American Development Bank; the Australian Agency for International Development; the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation; the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development; the Rockefeller Foundation; the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency; the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation; and the World Bank Group. Cheryl Gray, Director of the Office of Evaluation and Oversight at the Inter-American Development Bank, also congratulated the Center and said she was convinced that the Center will carry out excellent work in Mexico and extend it to the rest of the region. She added that it will serve as a source of knowledge and inspiration for the other CLEAR Centers, thereby contributing to better development results around the world.
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For more information on the CLEAR Latin America Center click here.
Media Coverage: El Universal Nacion | Watch the video
For full speeches and photos, visit the Mexican Presidency page.
