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URBAN GOVERNANCE | participatory
budgeting
This section includes a
variety of successful cases of citizens’ participation
in political affairs, developing their political engagement
in the redistribution of public resources and stimulating
greater municipal accountability.
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local level
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city level
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Schneider, Aaron & Ben Goldfrank
(2002) - Budgets and Ballots in Brazil: Participatory
Budgeting from the City to the State - IDS Working
Papers [pdf]
Budgeting institutions in the state of Rio Grande do Sul
bring participatory democracy to public finance. A chief
impact of participatory institutions is to change the relative
power of groups within society. In this case, with the Workers
Party in state office, participatory decision-making strengthened
lower-class groups interested in redistribution to the poor.
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international level
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Souza, Celina (2001) - "Participatory
budgeting in Brazilian cities: limits and possibilities
in building democratic institutions" - Environment
& Urbanization, Vol 13 No 1, April 2001 - IIED
[pdf]
This paper describes participatory budgeting in Brazil,
where citizen
assemblies in each district of a city determine priorities
for the use of a part of the city’s revenues. This
is one of the most significant innovations in Latin America
for increasing citizen participation and local government
accountability. After describing its antecedents, as various
local governments sought to increase citizen involvement
during the 1970s and 1980s, the paper reviews the experience
with
participatory budgeting in the cities of Porto Alegre and
Belo Horizonte. It describes who took part in different
(district and sectoral) citizen assemblies, the resources
they could call on and the priorities established. It also
discusses its effectiveness regarding increased participation,
more pro-poor expenditures and greater local government
accountability. While noting the limitations (for instance,
some of the poorest groups were not involved, and in other
cities it was not so successful) the paper also highlights
how participatory budgeting allows formerly excluded groups
to decide on investment priorities in their communities
and to monitor government response.
It has helped reduce clientelist practices and, perhaps
more importantly for a society as unequal as Brazil, helped
to build democratic institutions.
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websites |
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Documents highlighting DFID's published
work in support of participatory budgeting and redistribution
of resources in urban areas: |
"Children and Participatory
Budgeting in Barra Mansa" - Wakely, Patrick;
Nicholas You (2001) – Implementing the Habitat
Agenda: In Search of Urban Sustainability - DPU
[pdf]
Brazil - This initiative shows how
the political participation of children and young
people in public affairs can develop their citizenship
by means of a council for participatory budgeting.
Promoting their participation gives young people the
opportunity to discuss the needs of their neighbourhoods
and the city. In Barra Mansa, a municipality in the
state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, children make up
35% of the population. |
"Participatory
Budgeting in Porto Alegre" - Ibid. [pdf]
Brazil - In Porto Alegre, institutional
innovation promoting democratic citizen participation
in municipal budgeting has been widely recognised,
within and outside Brazil, to have effectively redistributed
resources towards sections of the city with the greater
need for basic services. Brazil's political history
had long been marked by
authoritarian, techno-bureaucratic regimes in which
the state dominated over civil society. |
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