Administrative simplification plan
Introduction
The Public Administration Modernization Program (PROMAP)[1] was a program developed in the administration of Ernesto Zedillo within the 1995-2000 National Development Plan[2] of the United Mexican States and was launched on May 6, 1996. Its purpose was to promote an accessible, modern and efficient public administration according to the global trends of the New Public Management") at the federal level. This was intended to develop a service-oriented bureaucracy, close to citizens, which would promote the dignity and professionalization of the public service, and at the same time provide it with means and instruments that would highlight its productive and creative capacity.
Historical context
The conception, development and implementation of PROMAP were influenced by the period of transition that Mexico was experiencing and by the transformations of the world panorama.
On December 1, 1994, Ernesto Zedillo assumed the presidency of Mexico and just a few days later the country entered a severe economic crisis that caused the devaluation of the peso and the need for a financial rescue mainly from the United States and the International Monetary Fund. As a result, the value of the peso went from 3.4 pesos per dollar to 7.7 at the end of the year. During 1995 the GDP contracted 6%, the inflation rate rose to more than 50% and the real minimum wage fell by 12%. Although the recovery was rapid—largely due to high oil prices—the Mexican government had incurred more than $20 billion in debt. A few years later the debt would grow with Fobaproa, an action by which bank liabilities were assumed as public debt and further compromised the public treasury.[3].
Regarding the international panorama, during the 1990s Mexico experienced a process of trade opening under new global standards. On January 1, 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement came into effect. This agreement entailed a series of changes and demands, not only economic, but also political and organizational within the country. In a similar effort to position the country within the currents promoted by Western countries, Mexico joined the OECD on May 18, 1994. The organization was made up of countries from Eastern Europe and North America, and most of them had implemented, throughout the 1980s, a series of New Public Management (NGP) reforms.
NPM emerged as a response to the welfare state model that had prevailed since the interwar period and had been consolidated after the Second World War. According to the NGP, the State had become a heavy, opaque and inefficient apparatus, and for this structural reforms were needed to outline a new State. This new model took up market principles and private organizations for the public sector. Some of its main guidelines are: fiscal consolidation, privatization of parastatal companies, administrative modernization, surveillance and monitoring of resources, internal contracts, openness in the provision of services to private companies, transparency and accountability, decentralization, results-oriented policies and the inclusion of new technologies.