Areas of work
In Mexico, ARC works with social organizations and public interest groups who engage in policy monitoring to inform their dialogue with policy-makers. It has ongoing partnerships with farmer organizations, fisher cooperatives, and health rights defenders.
Members of the Guadalupe Coastal Fishing Production Cooperative Credit: Judy Gearhart, ARC
- Fisher organizing. ARC collaborates with the Mexican Confederation of Fishing and Aquaculture Cooperatives (CONMECOOP). CONMECOOP represents 41 federations and their 600 cooperatives in 15 states of Mexico. Its leaders, all fishers, are elected annually to support and strengthen the rights and benefits of its members, as well as the sustainable management of fishing activities. They are pioneers in the advancement of fisher-led fisheries management, including through their self-organized fishery monitoring committees.
- Campesino movement oversight. ARC works with the CSO Promotores de la Autogestión para el Desarrollo Social (PADS) in Guerrero. PADS provides technical support to autonomous peasant organizations to engage in participatory oversight of government rural development programs. These processes of participatory evaluation of public programs identify problems and promote spaces for dialogue with social and institutional actors to generate proposals that improve public policies in rural society.
- Health rights. ARC works with Observatorio de Mortalidad Materna en México (OMM) through Asesoría, Capacitatión y Asistencia en Salud (ACASAC) in Chiapas. They support and learn from networks of frontline health rights advocates. This partnership focuses on improving the access of indigenous communities to public health services and information on maternal and child health.
- Citizen oversight. ARC has collaborated with Controla Tu Gobierno, a CSO that promotes community oversight of government programs. This collaboration has documented grassroots urban women’s accountability campaigns, supported learning exchanges on watershed management commissions in Mexico, and co-convened a civil society-policymaker dialogue that took stock of citizen engagement with Supreme Audit Institutions in Latin America.
Youth health promoters from Tsotsil- and Tseltal-speaking communities who collaborate with ACASAC. Credit: Juan Carlos Martinez, ACASAC
ARC’s collaboration with these partners often involves co-created strategies for documenting and sharing lessons from their work.
Resources
Reports and Articles
Ten Dimensions of Network Strengthening: Lessons from Health Rights Advocates in Guatemala, Mexico, and the Philippines (Julia Fischer-Mackey et al, 2025) (also in Spanish)
Upwelling: Fishers Organizing for their Rights and Sustainable Fisheries (Judy Gearhart and Connor Moynihan, 2025) (also in Spanish)
Learning Exchange Among Health Rights Activists from Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico (Hilda Eugenia Argüello Avendaño and Deysi Verónica Ibarra Cabrera, 2025) (also in Spanish)
USAID’s Locally-Led Development Agenda: Open Government and Independent Monitoring (Jeffrey Hallock, Jonathan Fox, and Nick Chen, 2025)
Participatory Institutions and Democratic Governance (Jonathan Fox, 2025), foreword to Democratizing the State – Social Accountability and Social Control Regimes in Brazil and Mexico by Ernesto Isunza Vera and Adrian Gurza Lavalle.
Farmer Movement Oversight of the Mexican Government’s Scaled-up Fertilizer Program (Jonathan Fox and Carlos García Jiménez, 2025) (also in Spanish)
Farmer Movement Oversight and New Approaches to Government Agriculture Programs in Mexico (Jonathan Fox and Carlos García Jiménez, 2023)
Economic Accountability and Pro-Poor Forest Sector Reforms (David Barton Bray, 2022)
Citizen Participation in Auditing in Latin America: The Future Agenda (Marcos Mendiburu, 2021) (also in Spanish)
Citizen Participation in Latin America’s Supreme Audit Institutions: Progress or Impasse? (Marcos Mendiburu, 2020) (also in Spanish)
The Women of Caltongo Who Opened the Government’s Doors: Social Accountability at the Edge of Mexico City (Daniela Rea, 2019)
Citizen Experiences and Challenges in Bringing Transparency and Accountability to Local Governments in Southern Mexico (Carlos García Jiménez, 2019) (also in Spanish)
First Meeting of Auxiliary Watershed Organizations: Good Practices, Limitations, Lessons, and Prospects (Brenda Rodríguez Hererra, Rebeca Salazar Ramírez, Mariana González Moyo, 2018) (also in Spanish)
Accountability Keywords Blogs
When Does Responsiveness Add Up to Accountability? (Jonathan Fox, 2025) (also in Spanish, French, Portuguese)
Taking Stock of the Mexican Government’s Rebranded Whistleblower Program (Carlos G. Guerrero Orozco, 2022 [updated July 2025]) (also in Spanish)
From the Imported Term “Accountability” to Democratic Public Control in Latin America (Ernesto Isunza-Vera, 2021) (also in Spanish)
The Media as an Ally in the Fight Against Tax Privileges (Iván Benumea and Mariana Gurrola, 2021) (also in Spanish)
Contraloría Social – or “Social Oversight” (Felipe J. Hevia, 2021) (also in Spanish)