Pursuing sustainable development requires a whole-of-society effort, where government engages with the private sector, civil society organisations and citizens. It is with this goal in mind that the Nuevo León government created, in 2014, the Council for Strategic Planning, a consultative multi-stakeholder body mandated to provide advice in key areas for sustainable development and to elaborate the Strategic Plan of the State of Nuevo León 2015-2030. Five years after the elaboration of the Strategic Plan, the COVID-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented challenge to governments’ capacities to deliver on their policy objectives. In this context, close monitoring and credible evaluation remain as relevant as ever to sustaining the implementation of long-term objectives and the delivery of results.

This report provides an assessment of Nuevo León’s monitoring and evaluation system for the Strategic Plan 2015-2030 “Nuevo León Mañana”. After reviewing Nuevo León’s planning system, the report focuses on four main areas: improving the plan’s methodology and structure; monitoring to promote its delivery; creating a sound evaluation system; and promoting evidence-informed policy making in Nuevo León.

Formally established in 2014, the Nuevo León Council for Strategic Planning is an advisory body of the state executive for strategic planning and its evaluation. It aims to promote the sustainable development of Nuevo León through the implementation of the Strategic Plan for the State of Nuevo León 2015-2030. According to the Strategic Planning Law, the council is responsible for elaborating the Plan as well as for monitoring and evaluating the Plan’s implementation. The council also seeks to foster stakeholder engagement, as its members are representatives of the public and private sectors, academia and civil society.

This chapter analyses Nuevo León’s current institutional system related to strategic planning, monitoring and evaluation. It calls for clarification on the respective responsibilities of strategic planning of the Nuevo León Council for Strategic Planning and of the centre of government (notably the Executive Office of the Governor and the Secretariat of Finance). In particular, it recommends strengthening Nuevo León Council’s role as an advisory body and strategic knowledge broker, focusing on planning and evaluation, and moving it away from implementation and monitoring. Furthermore, it calls for strengthening the centre of government mandate and capacities for policy coordination and monitoring. Finally, it suggests that a whole-of-government strategy for policy monitoring and evaluation could contribute to better policy coherence.

This chapter provides an in-depth analysis of the methodology used to develop Nuevo León’s main long-term planning tool, the Strategic Plan 2015-2030 “Nuevo León Mañana”, as well as its consequent structure. OECD findings suggest that the joint effort by government and civil society to design the strategy has resulted in the widespread perception that it is an important initiative for the state. Yet, the methodology suffered from some technical shortcomings and did not leave enough space for prioritisation of long-term policy objectives. As a result, the structure of the document is not coherent, which makes it difficult to use as a planning tool.

This chapter discusses the respective roles of the Council of Nuevo León and the state public administration in regards to monitoring the Strategic Plan 2015-2030. It draws on comparative approaches to recommend the clarification of the institutional monitoring set-up and the reinforcement of the state public administration’s mandate in this regard. It highlights the need to increase quality assurance and quality control mechanisms for the monitoring process. The chapter also analyses the opportunity for monitoring results to provide the appropriate users timely performance feedback, so as to better public decision-making, accountability and information.

This chapter provides an in-depth and comparative analysis of the mechanisms in place to evaluate the Strategic Plan 2015-2030. To this end, the chapter adopts a systemic approach to policy evaluation, providing an overview of the Nuevo Leon’s government evaluation system. It includes a comparative analysis of Nuevo León’s institutional set-up for evaluation, as well as its tools for promoting the quality and use of evaluation. OECD findings suggest that creating a sound evaluation system for the Plan will involve clarifying the resources available for evaluations, as well as their intended use, by establishing a policy framework for evaluation. Strengthening the competences of the council in regard to evaluation will also play a key role in ensuring the quality of its evaluations.

This chapter examines capacities for evidence-informed policy-making in the state of Nuevo Léon. It examines the role of the council in the policy advisory system in Nuevo León and suggests ways in which it may better contribute to shaping the state policy agenda on strategic issues. It offers concrete approaches to strengthening the supply of evidence in Nuevo León by suggesting the council encourage the adoption of knowledge brokering methods to promote the relevance, impact and use of advice in the state public administration, for instance for making use of evidence synthesis methods. Finally, the report concludes that enhancing Nuevo León’s capacity for an evidence informed approach will require expanding the skills and infrastructure to generate and use evidence.

This chapter presents an action plan for the implementation of the OECD recommendations in the areas covered by the Review of the Monitoring and Evaluation System for the Strategic Plan of the State of Nuevo León 2015-2030, in particular: establishing a sound institutional system for planning, monitoring and evaluation; strengthening the Strategic Plan’s methodology and structure; developing monitoring for results; strengthening capacities for evaluation; and setting up a sound evidence-informed policy-making system. This chapter provides a list of the main activities, actions and steps to be taken for the implementation of each recommendation in the Review, and suggests which government entities are best suited to carry them out.