Participatory Budgeting: Citizen Participation for Better Public Policies

"In the last two decades, Latin American countries have implemented participatory budgeting (PB) as a way to incorporate citizen perspective into budget designation, in order to increase public policies’ impact, enhance budget transparency and comply with citizens’ right to participate in their own governance. The Latin American experience shows that PB can achieve these impacts, but that certain conditions make success more likely."

This policy brief describes and analyses the Latin American implementation of PB. It describes experiences, outcomes, factors underpinning success, and lessons learned, "all with an eye towards offering useful lessons for South Asian and Sub-Saharan African development actors." The document comes from Evidence and Lessons from Latin America (ELLA).

In order to create greater impact of public policies and programmes in terms of improving social and economic conditions, PB involves citizens in prioritising spending to reflect citizen priorities. Porto Alegre, Brazil, offers an example of PB in that it began in 1989 involving citizens as a way to help vulnerable and marginalised groups engage in the use of funds, a process adopted by 2,500 local governments in the region by 2007, which works, generally, as follows: "Once per year, local or regional governments call for individuals or civil or community organisations to participate in budget formulation. Often through a series of workshops or meetings, these actors give their opinion or decide on what projects, services or priorities the government should fund with a certain percentage of the local budget....In the majority of cases, the percentage of the total budget allocated through PB ranges from 3% to 15%....There are some exceptions, such as Cotacachi, Ecuador, where 58% of the city’s budget was under discussion in 2002. In Mundo Novo, a small Brazilian municipality, citizens decide on the full amount of the city budget....In some cases, the process has been formalised and regulated by creating laws and decrees that mandate PB and provide implementation guidelines, such as in Bolivia, Dominican Republic and Peru....Some PB schemes involve citizens not only in budget formulation, but also in monitoring compliance with PB prioritization during budget execution."

Outcomes show that in some places budgets have increased to satisfy citizen priorities for water, sanitation, paved roads, and electricity, as well as showing increased citizen involvement in the process.

In order to assure fair and balanced participation both among interest groups and along lines of gender, ethnicity, etc., as well as assuring government compliance, regional mechanisms can include capacity building, affirmative action measures, like quotas and care in meeting when participants are available, incentivised roles for officials to implement PB, roles for citizen oversight, and children and youth participation.

Lessons learned are the following:
"PB can improve public policy impact and benefit poorer and more vulnerable groups by making budget allocations better reflect citizens’ social priorities and needs. However, to increase the likelihood of success, efforts should be made to:
• Push for a context in which the government is accountable, transparent and recognizes citizens’ right to participate
• Ensure PB design is flexible and tailored to the local context
• Strengthen governments’ and participants’ technical capacity and interest in participating."