AlejandraRíos Cazares

Alejandra is the Mexico's Country Director in the WJP's Mexico Office. Before joining WJP, she was Deputy General Director of Conceptual Development, Analysis, and Indicators of Government Statistics at the National Institute of Statistics and Geography of Mexico (INEGI) from 2019 to 2024. Her work at INEGI involved conceptualizing and updating national statistical programs on a wide range of government-related issues, including transparency, control of corruption, civic culture, the penal system, discrimination, institutional trust, violence against women, and forced internal displacement.

Prior to her tenure at INEGI, Alejandra's career was rooted in the academic sector. Between 2004 and 2007, she was involved in academic projects on justice reform at the local level in Mexico, coordinated by the University of California San Diego and the Transborder Institute of the University of San Diego (Justice in Mexico Project). Her academic journey included a visiting research fellowship at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies in 2007.

From 2008 until 2019, she was a full-time professor at the Department of Public Administration at the Center for Economics Teaching and Research (CIDE), a leading social science research center in Mexico City. At CIDE, she participated as a researcher in evaluations and assessments on government transparency at the international, national, and local levels in Mexico, administrative records and government archives, and institutional changes at the state level in Mexico to strengthen accountability and government quality.

She was a member of the Editorial and Academic Committee of the General Archive of the Nation (AGN), Editorial Committees of the National Institute of Access to Public Information and Protection of Personal Data (IFAI and INAI), and specialized journals such as Politics and Government or Studies in Access to Information Law.

She has also worked on research on the local institutional response to gender mainstreaming and attention to gender violence in Mexico. On these issues, she has been a consultant for the UNDP, UNPFA and the WB.

She currently belongs to the WHO's Technical Advisory Group meeting on Violence against Women Estimation and Data.

From 2011 to 2018, Alejandra was a member of the Steering Committee of the Network for Government Accountability (Red por la rendición de cuentas). This network, comprising scholars and civil society organizations, was instrumental in advancing government transparency and accountability promotion through engagement and policy advocacy.

Her research interests are comparative institutional analysis, political development, government accountability, subnational politics, gender mainstreaming, and the institutional response to violence against women.

Alejandra holds a BA in political science and international relations from CIDE and an MA and a PhD in political science from the University of California, San Diego.