1. RIA and the case of Mexico Dr. Manuel Gerardo Flores Senior Economist Regulatory Policy Division OECD OECD-Israel Workshop on Improving the Design and Evaluation of Regulation and the use of Regulatory Impact Analysis 28-30 June 2011, Jerusalem

2. 2 Background: Mexico implemented RIA since 2000, and now it is one of the main features of regulatory policy The Federal Law of Administrative Procedure was amended in 2000 to establish the legal requirement of RIA for all new draft regulation, or modification of existing one, proposed by the Executive power. Introduction followed OECD recommendations Internal inertias had to be overcome. The new administration, even with a change of party, provided full support, specially from the office of the President. Designation of liaision officials within each ministry, training courses, capacity building, and a transparent RIA evaluation process aided in full implementation and assimilation. Early resistance that was overcome with high-level support A cost calculator to determine high and low impact RIA, and simplified and updated templates for the two types of RIA that followed best international practice were introduced. Shorter response times and a re-engineering of the RIA evaluation process were also included. The result has been a more efficient use of scarce tax-payer funded resources. The system was updated in 2010 with OECD support

3. 3 How the system works Regulatory Agency COFEMER Decide to initiate rulemaking action Regulators use the Regulatory Impact Calculator to determine the appropriate RIA type to be applied (simplified or full) Moderate Impact RIA COFEMER issues preliminary opinion Regulator sends response to preliminary opinion COFEMER issues final opinion Regulator might publish regulation in the Official Gazette for its entry into force 10 days of public consultation Regulators sends proposal and RIA to COFEMER High Impact RIA 30 days of public consultation

4. 4 Example of Public Consultation and the RIA process: Guidelines for the sale of food and drinks in the schools of basic education. The RIA and the regulatory draft were originally sent on June 10, 2010. During the public consultation process, COFEMER received 884 comments from civil society, industry and government. From this participation, COFEMER obtained valuable comments and suggestions that enriched the content of the Guidelines, which allowed to draw up a regulation that will address the problem of obesity in a better way. On July 22 (30 working days after the reception of the draft regulation), COFEMER issued its preliminary opinion, taking into account every comment and requesting for more information about the regulatory impacts to the agency promoting the Guidelines. In its final opinion, COFEMER concluded that the Guidelines would yield a positive net social impact in the order of 26,439 million pesos (total benefits minus total social costs). Finally, COFEMER stated that childhood obesity is a multifactorial problem that requires different policies and actions that fall within various actors the three branches of government and civil society, the Guidelines by itself would not solve the problem. Comments made by the Industry Comments made by the general society Comments made by the government

5. RIA and the case of Mexico Dr. Manuel Gerardo Flores Senior Economist Regulatory Policy Division OECD manuelgerardo.floresromero@oecd.org OECD-Israel Workshop on Improving the Design and Evaluation of Regulation and the use of Regulatory Impact Analysis 28-30 June 2011, Jerusalem