PARTICIPATORY BUDGETING AND CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT AT THE LOCAL LEVEL
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Carleton University(link is external) undergraduate students in Ottawa, Canada, are studying the link between communication and open government. In the class, the students examine how communication can be used to improve governance and to foster a more collaborative relationship between governments and citizens. This series of blog posts is related to a range of topics concerning the issues that challenge open government. These posts will appear on the OGP blog over the coming weeks. We hope you enjoy them.
Citizen engagement is very important for the proper functioning of society and democracy. It creates a feedback loop by which citizens and local authorities can identify problems and provide solutions. And thanks to the power of the modern internet and social media channels, we are seeing citizen engagement reach new parameters and contribute to worldwide conversations.
We often allocate a lot of importance to the discussion of open government and citizen engagement at the national level because national governments are large institutions serving entire countries. National governments also usually set the tone for the governments at the lower levels. I believe, however, that it is just as important to understand how local communities and cities are opening government and engaging with citizens to create better social outcomes. After all, it is at the local level that citizens will be directly impacted by shifting public policy. Cities, in particular, often have less control but can act as powerful agents of change. Such has been the case in Porto Alegre, Brazil where citizens have been participating in the creation of the municipal budget since 1989.
Deciding the allocation of funds can be a daunting task, especially if resources are limited. Citizens determining the budget of a city comprised of millions of people seems like a good initiative. Unfortunately, citizens are not always considered active decision makers in public policy issues. Brazil’s most recent OGP National Action Plan, however, prioritized citizen participation and engagement in government.
Participatory budgeting started in Porto Alegre when the city was confronting deep financial hardships due to severe income disparities. To address this problem, the city moved to allow citizens, rather than politicians, to decide the spending breakdown of significant portions of the municipal budget. Neighbourhoods now get together each week to analyze the previous annual budget and discuss the (link is external)future one. They delegate representatives to present the proposal to the city assembly, which in turn determines which program(s) will be funded.
Participatory budgeting has had a positive effect in Porto Alegre because people can see that citizen-led projects are coming to fruition. And the results are even more telling of the benefits of participatory budget practices. The municipal government has allocated more funds to education and sanitation while infant mortality has decreased(link is external). Municipal facilities have improved for the people of Porto Alegre. Water and sewer connections went up from 75 % of households in 1988 to 98% in 1997(link is external). The focus of resources have been in areas with lower income and fewer public services. This signifies that when citizens decide, they are really committed to helping one another other. It also illustrates the efficiency of citizen engagement in the affairs of the municipal government. Porto Alegre’s success has inspired other cities in Brazil and elsewhere to adopt the methods of participatory budgeting.
Not only does participatory budgeting give a voice to citizens, it also creates avenues to hold municipal governments accountable for public spending and prevent corruption. It makes the government more transparent and leads to trust in elected officials. Another benefit of participatory budgeting is that citizens are educated in the process and acquire information necessary to continue engaging with government. While participatory budgeting may be difficult to apply on a national level because of the larger and dispersed population, new technology tools can be effective means of gauging and taking into consideration citizen opinion on national budgets. In sum, citizen engagement has the potential to produce significant and positive changes at the local level that can then expand to the national context.
