Public Policy Work

From early 2021 to late 2024, during my tenure at the Mexican Government, I participated in various strategies and public policies for peacebuilding and human rights.

First at the Unit for Peacebuilding, also known as Mesas de Paz at the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC), and then at the Direction General of Human Rights Public Policy at the Secretariat of the Interior, I was involved in the design, implementation, and evaluation of on-the-ground projects in some of the regions most affected by violence in the country.

Here are a few examples.

Peacebuilders (Constructores de Paz)

It was a strategy implemented by the SSPC in the most crime-affected communities in the country and which aimed to reduce the vulnerability of youth of being recruited by criminal groups. This strategy implied strategic deployment of public servants in the fifty municipalities with highest homicide rates and visiting the homes in the most vulnerable neighborhoods to identify needs and offer comprehensive social programs.

I was part of the design, implementation, and evaluation phases, which included pre-field work analyses; building partnerships with federal and local actors; training teams and conducting on-the-ground interventions; monitoring and evaluating the progress of the strategy; and producing reports for my superiors.

I am co-writing a paper on the experience of Mexico's Mesas de Paz and the lessons it gives to the field of peace and conflict studies in general and to the literature of infrastructures for peace in specific.

Special Guanajuato Strategy (Estrategia Especial Guanajuato)

In late 2022, the President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024) ordered the creation of a pacification strategy for the state of Guanajuato, which has been the state with most homicides in the country for the past years. Throughout 2023, I participated in the design of the Special Strategy for Peace in Guanajuato (or Estrategia Especial Guanajuato), which implied collaboration with the National Guard and the Armed Forces regarding the security operations, and with the Mexican Government departments of health, education, culture, labor, wellbeing, and others under the coordination of the Security Secretariat. I was involved in the desk work to analyze which territories were going to be intervened; in the preparation meetings to identify the collaboration schemes with other agencies; in the training of public servants that would be deployed; and in the operations on the ground in some of the municipalities of the state. For my practice, I also I relied on my own experience conducting field research in Guanajuato for my doctoral dissertation back in 2018.

A synthesis of the strategy was presented by the Secretary of Security at the Morning Press Conference at the National Palace.

I am also working on a scholarly paper that analyses the criminal violence, security policies and their narratives in Guanajuato.

Human Rights Projects (Estrategias de Derechos Humanos)

During my time as Director General of Human Rights Public Policy at the Secretariat of the Interior, I was led or was involved in human rights projects for the protection of vulnerable groups, training of public officials, and partnerships with local agencies for the enhancement of human rights in the country.

For instance, under the supervision of the Chief of the Unit for the Protection of Human Rights and in coordination with the Direction General of Protection of Human Rights Advocates and Journalists, I led the implementation of a strategy to focus health services, including psychologic care, for the relatives of missing persons in the state of Guanajuato.

The area under my supervision also participated in on-the-ground projects to identify levels of drug abuse among the working class in the industrial corridor in Guanajuato, and we designed and conducted along with health agencies, surveys on drug use in industrial neighborhoods in the municipalities most affected by criminal violence.

In addition, I led the elaboration of a national protest response protocol and presented it during the third session of the Mexico's Human Rights Agenda in November 2024.

My area also provided support to the elaboration of an executive report of the findings of Mexico's Truth Commission (CoVEH) regarding the state violence between 1965 and 1990. This report synthesized the work of the different bodies of the CoVEH, which included independent experts and government agencies, and my area and I were in charge of presenting the report to the different groups of survivors and relatives of the victims of the state violence of Mexico's "Dirty War".