November 2018 | by Jason Lakin, Ph.D., International Budget Partnership

Mexico has an elaborate system of “budgeting for results,” of which budget programs are an important part. Results-based budgeting is a form of performance budgeting that attempts to link allocations to the achievement of specific results, such as outputs and outcomes of government services. While program budgeting is not new in Mexico, the last decade has seen efforts to refine and consolidate the number of budget programs, and to enhance the quality and logic of performance indicators and targets.
Mexico’s health budget has 31 programs, which is more than any other country included in our recent study on program budgeting in the health sector in low- and middle-income countries. This case study examines Mexico’s approach to program budgeting in the health sector – in particular the advantages and disadvantages of having a large number of programs.
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Further Reading
IBP’s work on program budgets, in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO), examines global practices related to budget program structure in health to shed light on how governments define program objectives as part of their broader quest to shift budgeting toward results that matter to citizens. The following publications are also part of this project:
- Program Budget Structure in the Health Sector: A Review of Program-Based Budgeting Practices in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (Synthesis Paper)
- Program-Based Budgeting in Health in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A New Dataset (Dataset of 30 Countries and Technical Note)
- Defining and Managing Budget Programs in the Health Sector: The Brazilian Experience (Case Study)
- Program Budgeting in the Health Sector in Indonesia (Case Study)
- The Philippines: From Performance to Programs in the Health Budget (Case Study)