Throughout 2025, we accompanied the community of Yuguelito in Iztapalapa as they participated for the first time in Mexico City’s Participatory Budgeting (PB). Things did not go as expected, however. The project the community put forward was rejected on vague and contradictory grounds, most notably the settlement’s irregular status, which is not an official eligibility criterion.

This experience made clear to us the enormous gap between what is designed on paper and what actually happens on the ground. It meant not only pointing out legal loopholes, but also making visible that the conditions for exercising the right to participate in and to the city are not equal for everyone who lives in this vast metropolis.

To document this reality, we produced the mini-documentary Del Papel al Territorio and simultaneously launched advocacy actions: we submitted a territorial diagnostic to the Mexico City Electoral Institute (IECM), based on Yuguelito’s experience with the Participatory Budgeting.

At the end of 2025, we connected with the IECM to explore avenues for collaboration to strengthen civic participation in Mexico City. Among the opportunities we identified, we chose to engage with an aspect of participatory budgeting that is often overlooked, despite being an important component of the process and of civic participation mechanisms for that matter: citizen monitoring. At Accountability Lab México, we believe that meaningful participation is not designed from behind a desk. It is built on the evidence, experiences, and knowledge that emerge from communities, which are essential for creating more effective participatory processes that respond to people’s realities and improve their lives.

With that in mind, we officially registered with the IECM and received accreditation as an observer organization to conduct citizen monitoring of the participatory budgeting process. Our role was simple but fundamental: to help ensure that citizen participation mechanisms are implemented with transparency and integrity, and to provide recommendations for improvement. We observed different stages of the process, from training sessions for evaluators and voting inside pre-trial detention facilities to in-person voting at polling stations. This experience reinvigorated our commitment to keep pushing for improvements to participation instruments so that they truly work for everyone. Monitoring, too, is a tool of civic resistance.

The moment of action: when theory meets reality

Effective monitoring begins with an understanding of how the process is intended to work. With that in mind, we attended the training sessions for the Technical Evaluation Committees (ODAs) several months before the vote. These sessions provided an opportunity for us to assess how the recommendations we had put forward in our territorial diagnostic were being incorporated in the training and the evaluation criteria. 

We were able to confirm that several of our recommendations had been adopted by the IECM and were already visible in practice, including more in-depth training, a toolkit for project assessment, and measures to standardize the evaluation phase to strengthen consistency and transparency. Among the improvements adopted, one stood out as particularly significant: the recognition of a territorial justice lens in project evaluation. 

Integrating these criteria was a significant step forward. A rule may appear fair on paper, but without territorial and social lenses guiding its implementation, it can become a barrier, especially for communities on the margins. Being there was a reminder that the role of evaluators goes beyond reviewing project proposals and completing assessment forms. Their decisions can either help reduce inequalities or reinforce them. 

Beyond the walls: Monitoring participation in pre-trial detention

Participatory Budgeting in Mexico City includes an early voting period for groups who may face prohibitive barriers to participating on election day, including online voters, people who are bedridden and their caregivers, and individuals in pre-trial detention. The latter was established to safeguard the political rights of those who have not yet been convicted of a crime. Our main responsibility was to monitor this early voting process inside a pre-trial detention facility. Yet, if monitoring participation in public spaces can be challenging, doing so from within the walls of a prison requires an entirely different perspective. 

In preparation for this experience, we attended a training session and, several weeks later, visited the Santa Martha Acatitla Men’s Social Reintegration Center (CEVARESO). Entering this space as observers was anything but ordinary. It offered an opportunity to reflect on how the exercise of rights must adapt to different circumstances to remain meaningful and accessible, and on the importance of ensuring that democratic participation does not end at the walls of a detention facility. Within a highly controlled environment, the challenge was to ensure that the voting process upheld the same guarantees of secrecy, freedom, and certainty as those of any polling station outside its walls. 

The field experience, however, revealed persistent implementation challenges. Despite the availability of digital tools, the logistical effort involved, and the Institute’s prior outreach visits, the final list of eligible voters included only two people. By the end of the day, the picture was even more striking: only one person cast a vote, and did so using a paper ballot because the tablets intended for digital voting were not functioning.

This figure is far more than a simple number. It is a wake-up call about the design and accessibility of the process itself. Significant technical, institutional, and monitoring efforts were deployed, yet participation remained virtually nonexistent. What explains this gap? What are we failing to see? Crossing those doors reminded us that meaningful inclusion cannot be measured solely by the existence of a mechanism, but also by people’s ability and willingness to engage with it in practice.

Lessons from the field on Election Day

The culminating moment had arrived: Election Day, when residents cast their votes for Participatory Budgeting projects and elected their COPACO representatives, the community commissions that represent each neighborhood.

We carried out our field deployment as part of the IECM’s 2026 Monitoring and Accompaniment Program. Organized into different routes, we visited polling stations across neighborhoods and municipalities, observed the voting process firsthand, and witnessed how democracy comes to life at the local level. We spoke with residents and listened to their experiences through a lens that views participation not only as a civic act, but also as an act of care: care for the community and for the shared spaces where people live, work, and connect.

Reclaiming and improving public space requires collective organization, coordination with authorities, and a willingness to demand transparency and results. The goal is ensuring that neighborhood resources are directed where they are needed most. And no one is better positioned to identify those priorities than residents themselves, who understand the realities, challenges, and aspirations of their communities better than anyone else.

The energy on Election Day varied from one corner to the next, depending on the polling station’s location, the neighborhood, and even the people responsible for receiving votes. At some stations, turnout was high, with entire families showing up to participate. In others, the ballot box stood as an isolated presence competing with the rhythm of an ordinary Sunday afternoon.

It was striking to see how many people approached out of curiosity, drawn by the setup on the street and asking, “What are we voting on?” If they had their voter ID, many exercised their right to vote on the spot. It was a reminder that streets are more than transit routes; they are public spaces where community life unfolds.

Witnessing these contrasts revealed a persistent challenge. While voting was underway, many people passed by, unaware of the decisions being made that day. This points to the need for much stronger outreach and public awareness around participatory mechanisms, because participation should not depend on the chance encounter of a Sunday walk. There is still considerable work to do to ensure that these democratic tools are known, understood, embraced, and used intentionally by the communities they are meant to serve.

From territory to reform

The contrasts and unresolved challenges we encountered throughout this process are precisely what give our work meaning. Experiences from communities remind us that strengthening civic participation depends not only on better implementation, but also on better-designed mechanisms that respond to the realities of those seeking to exercise their rights. This is why we see the upcoming reform of Mexico City’s Citizen Participation Law as a critical opportunity to strengthen Participatory Budgeting and address some of the structural challenges that continue to limit its potential. At Accountability Lab Mexico, we will continue contributing to this conversation through evidence, learning, and the experiences of communities themselves. We do so with the conviction that democracy is built and strengthened in the places where people live, organize, and participate. For that reason, narrowing the gap between policy design and implementation remains essential.

It is precisely in reducing that gap that citizen monitoring finds its value. Attending training sessions, observing the early voting process at Santa Martha Acatitla, and visiting polling stations across the city were not isolated exercises. They were opportunities to assess whether the new criteria adopted by the Institute were genuinely advancing inclusion in practice or whether they continue to encounter the inertia of existing systems.

Citizen monitoring does not end when the votes are counted. It is an ongoing practice of presence, learning, and accountability in the territory. Our experience throughout this process has strengthened our conviction that working alongside public institutions is one of the most effective ways to ensure that future reforms are informed by lived realities and respond more equitably to the needs of urban peripheries. 

Related links:

• About implementation gaps in the Participatory Budgeting: the Yuguelito case
• More about screenings of Del Papel al Territorio with allies and the Yuguelito community
• Find more information here about the Participatory Budgeting mechanism and its stages.