Mexico’s National Development Plan 2007-2012: Objectives & Strategies
Message from President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa
This basic premise, the Plan for Sustainable Human Development, Vision 2030, is a joint commitment to Sustainable Human Development, a description of Mexico, desirable and possible despite differences. Sustainable Human Development gives us the opportunity to move forward with a comprehensive perspective of benefit to individuals, families, and communities. Its guides are liberty, legality, plurality, honesty, tolerance, and the ethical practice of power. This plan intends to establish national objectives, strategies, and priorities for this administration to govern government action so that it has a direction and a clear path. The proposals, ideas, expectations, opinions, concerns, and suggestions expressed by citizens participating in this consultation are a key element in developing this National Development Plan.
Sustainable Human Development
“The purpose of development is to create an atmosphere where everyone can increase their capacity and opportunity can be extended for present and future generations” to ensure the satisfaction of basic needs such as education, health, food, housing, and human rights protection. Democratic governance is a basic premise for the country to benefit from its rich plurality and reach the agreements necessary to transform reality and promote national development.
National Objectives
- National security, safeguarding peace, integrity, independence, and sovereignty of the country and ensuring the viability of the state and democracy.
- Ensure full application of the rule of law, strengthening the institutional framework and a strong culture of legality so that Mexicans truly feel their physical integrity, family, and heritage are protected within a framework of harmonious social coexistence.
- Achieve sustained economic growth and generate formal jobs faster, allowing all Mexicans, especially those living in poverty, to have a decent income and improve their quality of life.
- Have a competitive economy that provides goods and services at affordable prices by increasing productivity, economic competition, investment in infrastructure, strengthening the internal market, and creating favorable conditions for the development of enterprises, especially micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises.
- Reduce extreme poverty and ensure equal opportunities and the expansion of capabilities for all Mexicans to significantly improve their quality of life and guarantee food, health, education, decent housing, and a suitable environment for their development as set forth in the Constitution.
- Significantly reduce the social, economic, and cultural gaps persisting in society, ensuring that Mexicans are treated with fairness and justice in all spheres of life, with no form of discrimination.
- Ensure that Mexicans have real opportunities to fully exercise their rights as citizens and to participate actively in the political, cultural, economic, and social development of their communities and country.
- Ensure environmental sustainability through the responsible participation of Mexicans in the care, protection, preservation, and rational utilization of natural wealth, thus strengthening economic and social development without compromising natural heritage and the quality of life of future generations.
- Consolidate a democratic regime through agreement and dialogue among the branches of government, levels of government, political parties, and citizens, that translates into actual conditions so that Mexicans can prosper through their own efforts and be informed by values such as liberty, legality, plurality, honesty, tolerance, and the ethical practice of power.
- Reap the benefits of a globalized world to promote national development and project the interests of Mexico abroad, based on the strength of their national identity and culture, and taking responsibility as a promoter of progress and peaceful coexistence between nations.
Description of the Five Areas
Axis 1. Rule of Law and Security
A fundamental premise of social interaction is that people need security guarantees for Sustainable Human Development. Otherwise, people could not act and develop freely and safely. In short, Mexicans must have the confidence that, in the future, they will not lose the gains that are the fruits of their labor.
The Government is the first required to comply with and enforce the law so that there is a genuine rule of law in Mexico. Only by ensuring that life, property, freedoms, and rights of all Mexicans are properly protected will provide a firm basis for the optimal development of the capacities of the population. It will be required, similarly, that people meet their legal obligations.
It is crucial to note that the validity of laws is absolutely necessary, whether in some cases they are required to be modified or amended. In this first duty of the Government party’s force, in itself, the rule of law as a whole. Once this condition is met, we could begin to reform the law in accordance with the terms raised by citizens and political actors in general, or dictated by the interests of the nation within the framework of the division of powers.
The government’s role should be exemplary to the public. If it is clearly committed to compliance with the law, then it will generate the right incentives for citizens to order their coexistence. In that way, it will generate a virtuous circle of full force of law and social life that is orderly, peaceful, and proper for the development of social and political participation.
Only in a social order of such features will the freedom and responsibility of everyone be increasingly linked, supporting one another. Only in this way will the physical integrity and heritage of families be respected, as well as the free movement of persons, goods, services, and capital. In correspondence with the above, the public knows and relies on a legal framework which is backed by strong and impartial institutions.
Clearly, the rule of law allows social processes achieved in all areas of life to unfold effectively. Examples are the activities and processes taking place in the economic sphere, where if the principle of certainty about property rights is met, the whole economy will benefit, as economic actors will have incentives for enterprises and investors.
Public security and the rule of law are essential to a binomial reality of Sustainable Human Development. The Government should be able to objectively and impartially punish those who fail to comply with provisions of law, to ensure the security of all Mexicans. It is that of citizenship that provides key information on the public manifestation of the phenomenon of crime. Under that understanding, this plan aims to integrate the citizen participation system of security.
A first approach to the advancement of security is to apply the precautionary principle. Indeed, insofar as the establishment of decent living conditions for most Mexicans and protecting the rights of citizens, preventing crime will significantly advance, while strengthening the full enjoyment of rights and liberties.
A second perspective is to actively combat and punish crimes by improving the instruments available to the police, prosecutors, and investigators, as well as the capacity of the prison system. It is necessary to establish cooperation agreements at the intranational and international levels in order to improve the fight against organized crime, particularly drug trafficking, people, and goods, crimes which significantly affect human development.
Axis 2. Competitive Economy and Employment Generation
Economic growth results from the interaction of several elements: institutions, population, natural resources, physical capital endowments, capacities of citizens, competition, infrastructure, and available technology. For development to be sustainable, the company must invest enough in all these factors in the economic and social system.
The sustainability of an economy growing at high rates is found in the version of physical assets and capabilities of the population and in productivity growth. It must be stressed that investment in education and health has high social returns and contributes significantly to economic growth.
As demonstrated by our economic future in recent decades, macroeconomic stability is fundamental to generating investment. Low interest rates, inflation, debt, and public finances in order are essential to be able to translate economic activity into employment.
Due to the demographic transition, the increase in the working-age population represents a great opportunity. It is necessary to increase competitiveness and achieve higher levels of investment in different areas that allow us to create the jobs demanded by this sector of the population. This will result in a virtuous circle of higher savings and investment related to the life cycle, as they are of working-age individuals who make the greatest savings.
As established in this Plan, only taking advantage of this situation with a fair chance of maintaining a dignified life will adequately address the challenge of an increasing proportion of the elderly population. It is clear that the so-called demographic dividend, which we will enjoy for a few more years, should be used as a lever for development.
An efficient structure of property rights is a prerequisite for a vigorous economy. It is therefore essential that laws, rules, and regulations that affect economic activity in different ways are designed to enhance productivity in Mexico. It is also necessary that there is certainty that the related regulations will be applied equally to all citizens without exception.
The clear delineation of the state’s economic participation, the guarantee by the regulatory authorities that the playing field is even for all players, as well as prompt and effective action by the Government to address, within the scope of its powers, issues of economic activity of individuals, are fundamental elements of a healthy competitive environment conducive to investment and entrepreneurship at all levels. In this regard, the role of government in ensuring economic competition is crucial. Competition means lower prices for inputs and final goods, contributing to a higher level of family income.
Infrastructure is an essential input for economic activity in a country. This is a key determinant of access to markets, the cost of inputs, and final goods. There are also areas that, because of their importance in the field of regional development and job creation, are essential, such as the primary sector, small and medium enterprises, housing, and the tourism sector.
Finally, it should be mentioned that the financial system has a key role as an interface for saving and drafting Mexican entrepreneurs. The process by which it manages to channel resources to innovative projects and reduce transaction costs between economic agents is another form of sustainability of the economic system.
This Strategic Plan considers conditions to which Mexico is inserted into the forefront of technology. This is essential to promote the development of the country in a sustainable way. New technologies have opened up enormous opportunities for personal improvement through greater access to information, have led to significant medical advances, allow greater efficiency in both production processes and government, and allowed greater production of goods and services using new production methods in all sectors of economic activity. Not taking advantage of new technologies and helping develop them would not only set aside a significant source of structural progress but would result in a loss of competitiveness of the Mexican economy.
Axis 3. Equal Opportunities
Every Mexican, regardless of their place of origin and the income of their parents, must have genuine access to educational opportunities and achievement. That is the essence of equality of opportunity, and it can be verified only by expanding capacity and improving the living conditions of those most in need. Sustainable Human Development in these processes is based on personal, family, and community social realization.
One of the major challenges facing developing a comprehensive strategy in a country like Mexico is to eliminate the determinism represented for many by their condition at birth. That is, social public policies must respond to the problem of poverty as a transgenerational process.
Given this, it is necessary that we ensure access to basic services for all Mexicans to have a decent life. This means that everyone can have access to water, adequate food, health and education, housing, recreation, and all those services which are the welfare of individuals and communities.
Equality of opportunity requires spatial planning to ensure balanced development. Similarly, it is necessary that every Mexican is certain regarding the land and are, consequently, opportunities for a decent life.
An important part of the social equation is the achievement of quality education. This will be the talent to improve the development of the person and in turn promote economic growth.
Quality education should train students to levels of skills, abilities, and expertise demanded by the labor market. It should also promote the ability to manage feelings and emotions, and values to be formative. In this way, children and young people have personal training and strength to enable them to face and not fall into the problems of phenomena such as drug addiction and the culture of violence.
This is to educate citizens who are persevering, ethical, and capable enough to join the labor market and to participate freely and responsibly in our democracy through the cultivation of values such as freedom, justice, and the capacity for dialogue.
Finally, greater equality of opportunity has to do with policies that allow more of the urban population to be successfully inserted into the economic and social life of cities in the years to come. Indeed, the patterns of growth and migration imply that the proportion of the urban population will continue to increase, as it has in the past, both in our country and in other nations throughout the development process. To ensure that this happens in an orderly manner and without social dislocations requires effective coordination between the Federal Government, the states, and municipalities.
Axis 4. Environmental Sustainability
Sustainability of ecosystems is essential for a comprehensive strategy for human development. First, smart and responsible stewardship of our natural resources is the starting point to have public policies that effectively promote environmental sustainability. By improving current living conditions of the population through the rational use of natural resources, we ensure the heritage of future generations.
The variety of ecosystems that coexist in the country harbors unique biodiversity on the planet. It is necessary to recognize the destruction of the environment in Mexico has been extremely severe in terms of its depth and sequences on the living conditions and possibilities for real development.
This National Development Plan proposes that a first element in the level of public policies to preserve the environment is mainstreaming. This is essential for effective interagency coordination, and true integration between sectors of government, allowing access to produce measurable results.
The aim of halting the deterioration of the environment does not mean you no longer use natural resources, but that they are used better. Moving in that direction is to be carried out by environmental impact assessments and to invest significantly in research and development of science and technology. With this new availability of technology, we will ensure that with the same human resources, natural capital will achieve greater productivity.
For Mexico to achieve environmental sustainability, there is a real need to reconcile the environment with two large areas of sustainable human development. These are the productivity and competitiveness of the economy as a whole. There are several ways to achieve this reconciliation, one of which is the productive projects that are linked to the restoration of natural areas such as forests, involving payments for environmental services and that can arrest the loss of water sources, as well as progress desertification of our land.
Other actions proposed in this National Development Plan in this perspective are related to the economic valuation of natural resources, economic support to owners of forests, rational water management, effective control of forest fires, and promoting ecotourism.
Finally, the National Development Plan states that environmental sustainability requires Mexico to join with any effectiveness and responsibility to the international efforts to prevent the world from suffering without remedy environmental dislocations, such as global warming. Sustainable human development requires our country, together with the nations of the world, to fully share the principle that natural resources and climate stability are a public good for all humanity, and we cannot exclude anyone from their enjoyment at any time, and therefore must be preserved with any effectiveness.
Axis 5. Effective Democracy and Responsible Foreign Policy
It is essential that the tangible reality of effective suffrage in the lives of Mexicans grow into a functioning democracy, so as to reduce the gap between citizens and their representatives. Put another way, although it is healthy and necessary for national policy to show the participation of parties and political organizations, Mexico has already passed the citizenship policy. Just checking the condition of our political life promotes accountability, dialogue, and training agreements. This will strengthen, in a substantive way, the young Mexican democracy.
It is essential to keep in mind that, although public policies and institutions obey designs and innovative programs, only a strengthening of democratic life, vitalizing society’s participation in public affairs and widely considered the political sphere, will succeed in true development.
This Plan proposes that the conscious exercise of participatory citizenship must correspond to a responsible foreign policy, defined and active to seek the human development of Mexicans and other peoples. At the same time, Mexico needs to make the most of the benefits arising from international treaties on various subjects.
First, an active foreign policy must go beyond trade agreements. Currently, a phenomenon of great significance among nations is one that has to do not only with trade in goods and services but that points directly to the flow of people for different reasons.
This last item is apparent in a new agenda that is critical to understand in the light of logic describing international relations today. The intense process of migration of people who go through all kinds of dangers and hardships to reach their destination beyond the borders of Mexico is a huge challenge for our foreign policy.
That is why our foreign policy should wield a strong defense of the rights of all persons, regardless of their immigration status. The development of Mexicans involved in any legitimate activity and the full exercise of their freedoms must be matched by the same approach to other peoples. This plan will articulate specific strategies and actions in seeking to defend and promote the national interest, defined as the interest of all Mexicans, and consider the human development of people as an early, consistent, and strategic position of Mexico’s policy in the international field.
However, foreign policy should not be confined only to migration. Foreign policy should include an international context as complex as the national one. To cope with the multiplicity of issues in international, foreign policy will serve our country at all times the priority of international cooperation and will be governed by the principle of promoting peace among nations.
As noted above, the integral strategy proposed in this Plan is based on broad national objectives and lines of action that will guide the actions of the Federal Civil Service over the period 2007-2012. Their implementation, and sectoral programs and annual arising of this Plan, will be held in accordance with organizational bases established in the Organic Law of the Federal Public Administration. Also, the implementation responsibilities under each of the agencies of the Federal Civil Service in accordance with their respective powers that the law and other applicable legal provisions determined. In the case of programs involving the attendance of various departments and agencies, implementation responsibilities will be shared through different cabinets that have organized the competition affairs office of the Federal Executive. There will also be a shared responsibility with the other branches of government in those programs that require concurrency and coordination with other levels of government.
The resources to be allocated to achieve national objectives, strategies, and priorities following the integral and sustainable development of the country in this Plan shall be determined pursuant to the Federal Budget and Fiscal Responsibility, by the revenue the federal public sector has over this administration. In this regard, the document Economic Policy Guidelines for the Measure of Federal Revenue and Expenditure Budget of the Federation for Fiscal Year 2007 contains a chapter on the public finance outlook for 2007-2012. As he presents the expected evolution of income and expenditure of the public sector for the period referred to, indicating the level of expenditure allocated to different programs that will fulfill the contents of this Plan. However, it is important to clarify that the expected evolution is consistent with an inertial scenario in which not provided even the measures proposed in this Plan.
Resource projections have adjusted annually according to the evolution point that has the Mexican economy, which by its nature is impossible to predict accurately. Also, projections are also updated as to materialize the proposed actions in this Plan and to propose other actors such as political parties, other federal authorities, local governments, and society as a whole.