Mexico is one of the 78 countries that make up the Open Government Alliance (AGA) (1), a global initiative that promotes a model of open and horizontal governance in which governments and civil society organizations collaborate to strengthen transparency, accountability and citizen participation in issues of public interest.
In the last Plan of Action, Mexico committed itself to strengthening the transparency of water, forest and fishing resources. This commitment considers two very important components to improve the transparency of information on water, forest and fishery resources. The first is the establishment of transparency monitoring groups in these three sectors and the second is the implementation of recommendations from the Natural Resources Transparency Index (2). In this article I will talk about the second component and the results achieved in recent years.
What is the Natural Resources Transparency Index and why is it important to measure information transparency?
The Natural Resources Transparency Index (ITRN) is a metric that rates the state of transparency stored in public information about the management of natural resources from zero to one. It consists of four indicators, which evaluate different aspects of information transparency in use rights, supports and subsidies, and inspection and surveillance for the three sectors.
| Active Transparency | |
 | Evaluate the compliance of natural resources regulatory bodies with transparency obligations |
| Proactive Transparency | |
 | Evaluate the usefulness of the information published on government portals regarding the management of natural resources |
| Reactive Transparency | |
 | Evaluate the quality of the information that is provided through the National Transparency Portal (PNT) in response to requests for information made to agencies responsible for the administration and management of natural resources |
| Open Data | |
 | Qualify that public digital data is accessible and can be used, reused and redistributed by any interested party |
Note: The ITRN gives a dominant weighting to Proactive Transparency. The full methodology is available here.
The information evaluated by the ITRN is used by various actors in society, including the government. Without public information about our natural resources, how could a research institution conduct studies on water use to identify a more efficient distribution? , how can a fisherman understand the reasons why a permit has been denied, while a fisherman who lives in the other municipality does not? , how could an organization help a community to use its timber resources responsibly without land information? , how could government bodies responsible for inspection and surveillance strategically direct their human and material resources if they are not aware of the places and seasons with the highest incidence of illegality?
Many of the decisions and actions taken on a daily basis by various actors in society need information. Not only that, up-to-date, complete and accessible information triggers an informed debate between society and government to find collegial solutions to complex problems such as those posed by natural resources. This is the reason why civil society organizations CartoCrítica, Causa Natura, Fund for Environmental Communication and Education and Reforestamos Mexico decided to join forces for the development and implementation of the ITRN.
Commitment of government bodies and results of ITRN 2021
The ITRN was applied for the first time in early 2020 and was announced to the following governmental bodies responsible for managing water, forests and fishery resources: Energy and Environmental Security Agency (ASEA), National Forestry Commission (Conafor), National Water Commission (Conagua), National Aquaculture and Fisheries Commission (Conapesca), National Fisheries Institute (Inapesca), Federal Office for Environmental Protection (PROFEPA) and the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT).
The rating obtained in 2020 by the three sectors did not exceed 0.5 out of one, so, with the support of the Secretariat of Public Service (SFP) and the National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data (INAI), the following was established as the goal of the 10th commitment of the 4th Plan of Action of the AGA: The quality of public information on the management of water, forest and fishing resources reaches a score of at least 0.5 in the ITRN 2021.
Throughout 2020 and 2021, civil society organizations and government bodies, accompanied by the SFP, the INAI and the coordination of the Center for Civil Society Organizations (NOSC) of the AGA met 39 times to follow up on commitment 10. Thanks to the good disposition of the transparency units and the technical areas of the government bodies, today we are pleased to have achieved remarkable progress in terms of transparency.
The water sector increased by 216% from 0.19 in 2020 to 0.60 in 2021; the forestry sector increased by 26% from 0.35 in 2020 to 0.44 in 2021; while the fishing sector increased by 58% from 0.33 in 2020 to 0.52 in 2021.
With these results, two of the three sectors achieved the goal of exceeding 0.5 of the ITRN in 2021. Civil society organizations, we hope that this will only be the beginning of a continuous collaboration between government and civil society that will continue to be strengthened with the installation of Monitoring Groups in each sector, a goal that we continue to work on within the framework of the 10th commitment.
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