Mariana Campos

General Director

México Evalúa

I am a dedicated Mexican policy expert, activist, mother, wife, and citizen, with a career centred around a single goal: to enhance government efficiency for the betterment of people's lives. My studies in Economics (B.A. ITAM, Mexico) and Public Policy (M.Sc. Carnegie Mellon University, USA) were driven by a shared desire among my generation to reform the Mexican government, making it more modern, professional, accountable, and service-oriented.

My journey began at the Mexican Finance Ministry (SHCP) and the Mexican Internal Revenue Service (SAT). Realizing the slow pace of change within bureaucracies, I ventured outside to promote transformative ideas. Initially, I was policy analyst at the IDEA Foundation, then partner in GEA, a public sector consultancy firm, and later joined the newly established think-tank Mexico Evalúa, back in 2013.

As the head of Mexico Evalúa’s Public Expenditure and Accountability program, I led various projects scrutinizing Mexico's public procurement system:

• MeTrOP, introduced an innovative Metric of Transparency of Public Works, useful to evaluate transparency in the phases of public works. The first work to pull together the process of developing public infrastructure in Mexico including the contracting process.
• My team led a team of experts that proposed a model law for public contracts and collaborated with the Federal Economic Competition Commission to promote legislation strengthening planning, competition, and anti-corruption measures in procurement.
• I also worked to design important improvements to COMPRANET, an on-line public procurement system together with the OCDE team.
• My work has included the investigation of specific corruption cases, notably the Paso Express disaster—a 140-million-dollar highway. Within a mere three months of its inauguration, a deep sinkhole emerged, engulfing a car, and tragically resulting in the loss of two lives. This resulting essay won a second place in the national contest of accountability organized by the Superior Audit Institution (ASF) in Mexico.
• I also led a reform discussion to the Public Works Law that posed corruption risks, advocating for constitutional principles like competition and transparency in procurement processes. This reform did not pass.
• At the state level, the Open Infrastructure Nuevo León project promoted transparency by sharing project and contract related information and international standards compliance in a platform. OCP evaluated the impact of such exercise and found that it has positively impacted competition for public infrastructure contracts. Afterwards, the National Transparency Institute replicated the same exercise within more than ten governments. Together with Open Contracting Partnership. I was the leading advisor for this initiative. As a result, the OCP named me one of 11 OCP champions in 2022 for advancing accountability in public contracting.

My commitment to advancing transparency, accountability, and effective governance in public spending led to my appointment as the Director General of Mexico Evalúa in 2023. Despite many challenges –including political attacks from the President of Mexico, as we have become a trusted source of monitoring, evaluation, and policy recommendations – we persist with rigorous data and objective studies. Our mission remains rooted in the principle that public funds must be utilized efficiently and effectively for the greater good.