Chiba University Leading Research Promotion Program
Online International Seminar (in English)
A High Impact Welfare Project against Food Poverty in Mexico:
Collaboration Difficulties, Governmental Intervention, andIts consequences in Fairness

Date & Time：18 Nov. 2022(Fri), Japan

Abstract: This is a research essay based on the transcript of the seminar “A high impact welfare projectagainst food poverty in Mexico: collaboration difficulties, governmental intervention and its consequencesin fairness”. Mr. Alfonso Torrero (Ph.D. candidate from Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico)
addressed the issue of regional development, poverty, and communities in Mexico from the perspective of
fairness, and discussion was initiated, and research ideas were exchanged afterwards.

Moderator

・Prof. Hikari Ishido (Chiba University)
Panelists
・Mr. Alfonso Torrero (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana)・Prof. Jiro Mizushima (Chiba University)
・Prof. Masaya Kobayashi (Chiba University)
・Prof. Takayuki Kawase (Chiba University)
・Dr. Xiaofang Zhang (Chiba University)

Organizer: Chiba University Global Fair Society Program

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Introduction (by Prof. Hikari Ishido)This online seminar is entitled “A high impact welfare project against food poverty in Mexico:
collaboration difficulties, governmental intervention and its consequences in fairness”. Mr.
Alfonso Torrero (Ph.D. candidate from Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico) willaddress the issue of regional development, poverty, and communities in Mexico from theperspective of fairness.
Opening remark (by Prof. Jiro Mizushima)
We are going to have a session now, and today’s special guest is Mr. Alfonso Torrero. We arevery pleased to hear that you have accomplished your dissertation just a couple of weeks ago,
congratulations! And I wish you success!
A High Impact Welfare Project against Food Poverty in Mexico: Collaboration
Difficulties, Governmental Intervention, and Its consequences in Fairness (Presented by
Mr. Alfonso Torrero)
The welfare project I am going to talk about is called “Jalisco sin Hambre”, which is also
linked to my dissertation. This project is considered a high impact welfare project against foodpoverty because a high budget governmental grant, consisting of more than a million dollars,
was given to a group of organizations for the purpose of diminishing food poverty in a wide
territorial region of Jalisco. This region included the city of Guadalajara and its surroundings,
the second most populated area in the country. The relevance of the project is that decreasing
food poverty is one of the main issues related to achieving fairness in the country.
Mexico has a long history of welfare programs, which started in 1976. Since then, almost every
presidential term, a period that last for six years, the government has made strategic plans withnew welfare programs for achieving a fairer society. The first high impact social welfare
program was named COPLAMAR (1976). It was a government program that had the objectiveof reducing economic poverty in Mexico. Since that year, many different programs werecreated 1 . However, in accordance with Gestión Social y Cooperación CSO (2017), theeffectiveness of social programs in Mexico is really low, and just 14 out of 136 programs are
successful, 122 programs were working in opacity (lack of transparency in their managementand decision processes), had a lack of budget or fell into corruption activities related to themisuse of funds and political partisanship. Therefore, I wanted to study a different program thatwas not coordinated by a governmental institution, but by a group of organizations belonging
to the three economic sectors – public, private and NGOs -, leaded by a private university. This
interorganizational collaboration was meant to join the different expertise and knowledge fromevery organization. In this way, an integral and strengthen program was going to be created tohelp the most marginated citizens to move from food and economic poverty. The characteristicsof “Jalisco sin Hambre” included, first, a non-care approach to fight food poverty instead ofgiving regular amount of free food to the targeted citizens. Instead, it was planned to train
beneficiaries for self-employment. For the aforementioned, “Jalisco sin Hambre” tried toadapt the BRAC poverty graduation program (designed by two Nobel Prize winners, Abhijit V.
Banerjee and Esther Duflo from Bangladesh) into Jalisco context.

1

For examples, Sistema Alimentario Mexicano (Mexico Food System, 1980-1982), Solidaridad (1988-1994),
Prospera (1994-1996), DICONSA (2007-today), Cruzada Nacional contra el hambre (Mexican Crusadeagainst Hunger 2014-2018)

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Second, “Jalisco sin Hambre” planned to create a food plant in which food wastes (fruits andvegetables) could be transformed in healthy products. Lastly, “Jalisco sin Hambre” planned to
implement a more effective strategic management and logistics in three food banks.
Here is the image of how the organizations participated in the project (Figure 1). Inside every
circle, there is an organization that participated in the project. The light blue one is thecoordinator of the project (ITESO), and the red lines are its internal relations. The dotted lines
represent the inter-organizational relations between the different organizations. All the actors
had to be in contact with the coordinating organization, and each one of them had specific tasks
that were discussed with other organizations to guarantee its effective accomplished. For
example, there was a legal observatory inside the ITESO that was going to propose some newlaws related to food management, as changing laws and restrictions for organizations thatwasted food was important to guarantee a better managed and preservation of food quality inthe food banks. The legal observatory was in constant with CIATEJ (the light blue circle) to
discuss about the best industrial requirements that should be considered in the law changes.
Also, they worked directly with CIATEJ to create a food plant to process food wastes. Anotherexample is the food right observatory. The ITESO made a website for all the people to know
how important it was to have a good nutrition. The ones in orange are the food banks that weregoing to receive all the other contributors’ work because their beneficiaries were supposedly
going to receive the training from the adaptation of the BRAC program, were going to get better
food nests and enjoy a more effective service from the food banks.

Figure 1

The theoretical framework supporting my research was composed of three main topics,
governance, interorganizational relations and policy networks. “Jalisco sin Hambre” wasorganized and governed by different private organizations, which we could also callcommunities (studied in governance literature). The interorganizational relations framework
helped me understand the main characteristics of interorganizational relations. Policy networks
theories helped me understand how individual and collective decisions were taken in the project.
“Bounded Rationality”, the classic theory of Simon, was very useful to understand how
decisions were made individually, without considering the decisions effect in the wholeorganizational network. The processes approach gave some light about decisions takencollectively in the network. Other important knowledge, e.g. contingency theory and neo
institutionalism theory, helped me understand some conflicts between the network actors.

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Figure 2

During the project development, it was found that there was a hidden agenda in one of theorganizations, the one that decided to abandon the project abruptly in its development stage.
This organization was expecting to be recognized as a social responsibility organization, after
their collaborators were able to say that they worked in Jalisco sin Hambre, they left the project.
In is not that unusual that when interorganizational projects are promoted, they show 20 or 30
logos from different organizations, which are supposedly in a social cause, but in reality they
are not working on it. Dropping off the project was one of the elements that affected trust in
the network. Another phenomenon was that between organizations, there was a conflict in theirwork values or institutionalized values. For instance, Pro-Sociedad and the food banks, or the
ITESM and Pro-Sociedad. An NGO that used to work with the food banks had problems when
the internal committee of the banks changed; this internal committee thought that the training
given to their employees was not useful. So, they ended the interorganizational relation with
the NGO. The relation between other organizations was limited by bounded rationality, there
was no collective process approach in decision making. Most of the decisions were not takenby the organizational network but individual decisions. For example, CIATEJ decided by itself
how and where to construct the food plant, they just thought about the best choice for a structure
but did not discuss with the other actors. This individual decision was taken by bounded
rationality and a lack of discussion between the other network actor, that had other values. The
result of their decision limited the use of the food plant to one of the food banks, while theothers would lose more money in carrying their trucks to the food plant.
Besides, the lack of post evaluation and unkept promises accelerated the slow death of “Jaliscosin Hambre” such as unfair use of the food plant, unexpected departure of one organizationfrom the network, and an unexpected end of the training program. In addition, during the
pandemic, working restrictions from the government resulted in food banks closure andunattainable activities, which limited organizational work. Besides, after the initial grantfinished the government did not provide new funds, and the organizations did not do anything
to obtain resources from other possible donors. Finally, the project was taken by the government
during the COVID-19 pandemic; Jalisco governor used “Jalisco sin Hambre” name, logo, andsocial networks to promote the donation of food nests, eliminating one of the main
characteristics on the program, which was training people living in food poverty for selfemployment, instead of just giving them free food.
Therefore, “Jalisco sin Hambre” ended being an assistance program, leaving apart the possible
benefits derived from the BRAC graduation of poverty program. And it caused unfair
opportunities and representativity of beneficiaries due to the lack of governance. However, I
believe that there are still positive outcomes derived from “Jalisco sin Hambre”; specially thecreation of law reforms related to adequate food management.

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Review (By Prof. Hikari Ishido)
In the “Jalisco sin Hambre” project, I was really interested in the reasons why there has been
this coordination failure, maybe poverty, bounded rationality, or culturally oriented reasons as
well. And then in the field of management science, the organizational issues you talked about,reminded me the X-inefficiency issue, which means intraorganizational inefficiency. Simply tosay, it means your boss is not in line with the subordinates. And then the subordinates are also
thinking differently from the head of the company. Then the company’s whole or theorganizational objective will not be achieved under this influence of X-inefficiency.
Comment and Q&A
Prof. Takayuki Kawase
I am afraid that my question is slightly missing the point or outside of your presentation. My
question is about religion, especially catholic Christianity in Mexico. In my opinion, in a lot of
pre-modern societies, the religious organizations such as churches or temples have been taking
responsibility for social welfare in each society. But in modern society, the governments took
over a large part of this responsibility, and it was the same case in Japan, but how about in
Mexico? Do Christian churches do something important about social welfare in Mexico?
Mr. Alfonso Torrero
The “Jalisco sin Hambre” project, might be a perfect case of what you are talking about. The
project was taken by the Jalisco government to promote their fight against poverty after it had
been run for a year. Then, the government passed the responsibility of the program to anorganization called Caritas that is a Catholic religious organization. But I think that in this case,the program lost its identity after been taken by the government during the pandemic. The main
goals of the program were not really accomplished. But yes, there are many religiousorganizations that work in social welfare and give economic resources to help people.
Prof. Takayuki Kawase
In my opinion, in a very general way, I guess in Mexico, religious organizations are stronger
than in Japan. And the diversity of the actors is very important. I think a lot of Japanese people
rely on only the government too much. Of course, the government should take big responsibility,
but religious organizations or other organizations also take some responsibility for social
welfare. Such diversity is very important. I think the government is one of the most importantsectors, but it is just one of the organizations. In Mexico, if the religious organizations havesome power or some resources to take responsibility for social welfare, I think we have a lot ofthings to learn from Mexican society.
Mr. Alfonso Torrero
I’m not sure about Japan’s context, but here religious organizations and NGOs do a lot of social
welfare because the government is not that efficient, and the resources are not adequate,
sometimes because of corruption funds are stolen, they are wrongly distributed, etc., so it’scomplex work. So, we need a lot of the other economic sectors to help people out of difficult
situations or poverty situations.
Prof. Masaya Kobayashi
I understand that your research pointed to the effect or influence of unfairness regarding a
project in your country. How do you think of the relation between the project in your country
and fairness, and can you suggest the way to improve fairness concerning to the project in yourcountry?

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Mr. Alfonso TorreroFirst, trust is essential in this temporal interorganizational projects, if different organizationscommit to accomplish specific objectives, they must do so. I believe that trust in this project
was very fragile. Informality is always present in projects like this one, that last for 2 or 3 years;
you really do not know, as much as in other projects, the other actors. I think that trust must bepreserved in all circumstances. Trust was related to accomplishing the tasks that the actors said
they were going to do. Another thing that can be useful are the reunions between all the actors.
In this project it seemed that they heard each other, but at the end, they took decisions differently
from what they were supposed to do. I believe that if trust was preserved even in the pandemic
scenario, people would do something to work together. But when they lost their interest in the
project or when they saw that the other actors were not following what they said, the project
started to diminish its effectiveness, which affected the beneficiaries.
Prof. Masaya Kobayashi
The problems concerning, for example, trust is influenced by social custom, or economic
management, or political factors or so on. So which factor influenced the most of all?
Mr. Alfonso Torrero
I think that trust was lost in the interaction between the actors while accomplishing the tasks. I
talked about the other factors, for example, lack of funds, or the government taking over the
project. But I think in these short-live projects, the glue for people to continue working is thattrust could be seen in the actions and in the interactions between the actors. For example, if you
told me you would work with me doing a new software program, but you didn’t, or you did it
in a way without following my indications because you have another work values. This
probably happened every day in the interaction of the actors.
Dr. Xiaofang Zhang
What do you think is necessary for an effective program?
Mr. Alfonso Torrero
I believe that when things went wrong in the project, something should have been done. Besides,
a post evaluation of the project would have been useful for the government to notice all theissues that diminish Jalisco sin Hambre effectiveness, this must be really considered in future
projects because, at the end, it seemed that there was not the compromise to really obtain thegoals. If we don’t have money, or if we don’t trust the other actors, we will get behind the main
goals of the project. I think that it’s important to make and follow a daily plan and reallycomplete it, considering all the important parts such as constant evaluation and post evaluation.
Also, I believe that the attitude towards government should be changed. If there is a programthat has been developed for 3 years, and many efforts were put in the project, it shouldn’t betaken by the government that easily. It is important to not let the government promote theproject as propaganda and preserve trust, as mentioned before.
Prof. Hikari Ishido
I am a development economist in a sense, so I’m really interested in this food related topic,
because it must do a lot with Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize in Economics, way of thinking. He
mentioned that there is this rational foo idea going on under this – in a capitalized society.
Rational fool in the sense that every individual is rationally behaving, trying to maximize hisor her own benefit alone. Then what would happen at the societal level is that there would be

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poverty gap, income gap, and then you know criminal rate, social unrest and then – so each of
the participants in the society is trying to be rational, but foolishly so, because in the end, thesociety will not be so stable and sustainable, so nobody wanted that kind of society. But becauseof this rational foolishness, the society cannot solve this issue of like you know volunteeringand donations, so irrational conduct of volunteering and donation. Of course, you lose money,
and you lose your time, but for a fair society, I guess, it’s important. So, if you try to be too
rational, then actually you are being too foolish so that is what I was thinking. Then it takes a
lot of trust and ethicality and everything to stop being microscopically rational, and stop being
foolish at the societal level. So, what is the practical solution?
Mr. Alfonso Torrero
I saw it from another perspective, in the sense, that there is not a collective value to think about.
There is not collective thinking, or there were no efforts to collectively try to stop problems,
and this ended in an unarticulated program that has many different problems. Actors worked
individually to solve problems. Maybe we need a more collective oriented culture or promotecollective work in education. I think that we are sometimes very mechanical and automatic, justfocused on maximizing results without thinking about how to do it; we need to reflect about
deeper things that are going on in the planet because we are mainly guided by our micro
rationality. I’m not sure that I can say this will solve the problem of social welfare in Mexico.
I just took what I saw in the program I studied, what I observed and my interpretations, andthat’s the answer I have given, the practical answer. There should be other solutions for notworking that mechanically, and to really work together with other organizations; we must try
to solve the problems considering the knowledge of all the actors and the needs of all of them.
For example, communities in poverty, could give ideas about how to make a program better
because, sometimes, we think that we are the experts in a topic, but maybe the people living
every day in the situation have other ideas more important to consider for these programs.
Prof. Hikari Ishido
Maybe to some extent, selfless type of contribution and devotion to this “Jalisco sin Hambre”
project or any other parts of Mexico or where else in the world that would be needed. So, itshouldn’t include too much of economic or financial sort of calculation, but it should be driven
by trust and the hope of a fairer society. However, small it might be, that could be the starting
point. So, there is no mechanical solution. Mechanical design will definitely be reduced to thisrational foolish situation. Or no mechanism is needed, rather maybe trust-based, hope-based
small state project. So, in that sense I guess that what you talked about today has a lot to dowith this trust-related issue.
Prof. Jiro Mizushima
I would like to know about the status or position of “Jalisco sin Hambre” in Mexico, in
Mexican context. Is this project typical in Mexican context or is it quite unique? Why did you
choose this project? Do you think it could be continued as a unique case or a typical case?
Mr. Alfonso Torrero
Jalisco is the second most populated state in Mexico, and its economy is not as bad as in someother states like Oaxaca or Chiapas, the southern states with more poverty. The project itself
was innovative because it was supposed to use an integral approach to fight poverty, working
with the food banks, creating a food plant, and adapting the BRAC model from the Bangladesh
Association. The latter model was also called the Graduation of Poverty Program. Banerjee andPage 7 of 8

Duflo, the authors of the model, won the Nobel Prize because all the characteristics of theirtraining have been proven to help people be self-employed and really overpass their poverty
situation with better economic solidity after being part of this program. So, I found it interesting
and wanted to know how it would work in Mexico.

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