Participatory Budget THE PARTICIPATORY BUDGET IS A TOOL FOR THE CITY’S DEMOCRATIC MANAGEMENT, directly related to the budget management and represented by a process of debate, public hearing, and consultations on proposals for the application of the municipal budget’s resources. Furthermore, it’s a process that unites representative democracy with direct, voluntary, and universal democracy, in which people can discuss and deliberate about the budget and public policies.
REQUIRES Governmental commitment to involve and make information clear and accessible for the local population. Technical knowledge and capacity in the development of the instrument and process followup. Performance control of the departments in charge of budget implementation.
PROVIDES Participatory democracy, thus directing that budget for an action through consensus with the population. Broad understanding of the needs to prioritize investments vis-à-vis budget limitations.
Its main goal is to be a democratization tool, in other words, ensuring the population’s direct participation on the definition of priorities for public investments. Nevertheless, the Participatory Budget is a management and planning tool and, therefore, has a direct relation to other municipal planning instruments. In view of this, the integration and articulation of the Participatory Budget with the other planning instruments, in particular financial and budgetary, and municipalities’ administration, is an essential aspect as it promotes higher sustainability and effectiveness for the Participatory Budget. For it to be successful, amongst other factors, clear responsibility on the implementation of the decisions is key, such as who does what in what time and with what resources. There are several advantages to the implementation of the Participatory Budget leading to a new governmental approach based on transparency, social control, comanagement, community leadership, empowerment, active citizenship and civic education.