The Oportunidades Human Development Program is a program of the Federal Government aimed at improving the education, health and dietary intake of the Mexican poorest population. In 1997 the Program started to operate in rural areas under the name PROGRESA. By 2001 it had been extended to semi-urban areas, reaching urban areas in 2002. Five million families currently benefit from the Program.
Since the Program began to operate, an evaluation component has been planned to quantify the Program's impact through rigorous methodologies using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Following the Program's Operation Rules, the impact evaluation of Oportunidades was assigned to nationally and internationally prestigious academic and research institutions, such as the INSP (National Institute of Public Health), CIESAS, IFPRI, and CIDE, which warranted objective and reliable evaluations.
The Evaluation of Oportunidades is a continuous process focused on analyzing the outcomes and impacts of the program. Moreover, this evaluation serves as the basis of a comprehensive valuation system that also allows for adjusting the program's design and execution and promotes the achievement of its objectives and goals. in brief, the evaluation of oportunidades focuses on:
Measuring the outcomes and impacts on a short, medium, and long-term scale
Identifying the outcomes and impacts attributable to the Program, discerning effects associated with other factors, on individual, family, and community levels.
Analyzing indirect effects associated with the operation of the Program.
Providing new elements for continued improvement of the Program.
In the past few years, evaluation efforts have been based on the relationship between the strategies and actions of the Program and their effects on the target population, both in rural and urban areas.
The evaluation of the impact of Oportunidades has been internationally renowned for its academic solidity, its reliability, and its consistency. It is considered a model worthy of replication.
Quantitative and qualitative evaluations have yielded a collection of information, including databases (quantitative and qualitative), questionnaires, technical and methodological notes, household studies, and review documents. All this information is available on this website.
