Involving Municipalities in the Delivery of Education Programs in Mexico GEMUN: An Experiment in Education Delegation

CONAFE, a federal institution created in 1971, seeks to generate greater educational access and increase retention/achievements in marginalized localities in Mexico. In order to advance the cooperative federalism approach to public service delivery, CONAFE designed GEMUN to involve municipalities in planning and implementing programs through the experimentation with contractual delegation arrangements. The Capstone team conducted interviews with key stakeholders involved in the administration of GEMUN at the national, state, and municipal levels to understand their perceptions of the nature and scope of the experiment. After compiling the interview data, the team drafted a report documenting the perceptions of the different stakeholders, the extent to which GEMUN is achieving institutional and sectoral development results, and the gap between the original concept and its actual implementation on the ground. The report was jointly commissioned by CONAFE and the World Bank as part of efforts to evaluate and revise the program’s design.