Advances and Challenges in Public Policies and Programs to Prevent Discrimination in the Governmental Sphere. The Paped's Case, Mexico

Abstract

This article discusses some of the challenges implied in the task of implementing and evaluating actions to prevent and eradicate discrimination in the government sector. It is to recognize that in Mexico the task is in the making and follows patterns of unequal development, although it is widely legislated. For this discussion, we introduce contextual references about the implementation of reforms in favor of human rights in Mexico, and we articulate them with the notion of public policies. Then, we take as reference the case of the “Program to Prevent and Eliminate Discrimination” in the Mexico City (PAPED). We argue that, in contexts such as the Mexican, marked by multidimensional violence, corruption, and a poor performance of public institutions, it is necessary to increase the reflexivity of the instances that must implement actions of non-discrimination, as well as to increase this reflexivity in the transparency and visibility of evaluation exercises of their anti-discrimination actions, so as to reach more people and produce progressive movements of appropriation.