PARTICIPATORY BUDGETINGCitizen Participation in Budgeting:

Prospects forDeveloping Countries

Donald P. Moynihan

Participatory Budgeting in AsiaAlta Fölscher

The postmodern argument Disillusionment with bureaucracy The search for the democratic ideal The needs of developing countries

Participation Fosters Good Governance Participation Promotes Transparency Participation Increases Social Justice Participation Helps Individuals Become

Better

A primary goal of real participation is to increase the direct representation of all citizens. All citizens, not just those who are qualified by election, position, expertise, influence, or money, should be able to provide input.

According to Habermas (1989), participation processes must include all affected by a decision and disregard the social status of the participants.

A second primary goal of participation is that government provides for genuine discourse with its citizens and takes their input seriously, which Pateman (1989) labels full participation.

The use of participatory budgeting forums is of little benefit if the government does not listen.

Level Representatives

Broad Narrow

Full

Decisions Public officials make decisions, but citizens have strong influence.

Public officials and selected interest groups make decisions.

Participation Large, diverse groups of citizens engage in meaningful discourse with government.

Interest groups exert significant influence; most citizens lack opportunities to participate.

Partial

Decisions Public officials make decisions; citizens have limited influence.

Government elite make decisions; interest groups have limited influence.

Participation Large, diverse groups of citizens engage in limited discourse with government.

Interest groups exert influence; most citizens lack opportunities to participate.

Pseudo

Decisions Public officials make decisions.

Public officials make decisions in nontransparent manner.

Participation Participation is symbolic but involves large, diverse groups of citizens.

Participation is symbolic involving only a small number of citizens.

There is no agreement on what participatory budgeting means or how to go about it: the study and dissemination of the idea of participatory budgeting are following practice rather than the other way around.

Participatory budgeting aims to infuse the values of citizen involvement into the most basic and frequently the most formal procedure of governance—the distribution of resources through the budgeting process.

1. Participation in resource allocationEx: Participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre Before the introduction of participatory budgeting, the city

government was dominated by a clientelistic approach, in which public resources were used to maintain a political machine (Fung and Wright 2001).

A key event leading to the use of participatory budgeting was the election of the Worker’s Party candidate as mayor.

The mayor’s office is responsible for initiating the budget bill The municipal government then organizes a series of public

meetings by region. Two meetings a year occur in each of 16 regions. The

meetings include broad representation.

The first meeting includes a discussion of how the previous budget was spent.

At the second set of regional meetings, citizen-delegates report their findings from neighborhood meetings. Two delegates and a substitute are selected to represent each region at the municipal budget council, called the Participatory Budgeting Council.

The mayor can accept the budget or ask the council for revisions (a request that the council can override with a two-thirds majority).

The mayor’s office incorporates the proposals (which usually deal with public works) in its proposed budget. The mayor presents the budget to the local legislature, which usually approves it.

Ex: Tracking Spending In Uganda The World Bank, in collaboration with the Ugandan government, the

local Economic Policy Research Centre, and an independent Ugandan consulting firm, MSE Consultants, surveyed 250 government schools, randomly selected from 19 of Uganda’s 39 districts.

The results showed that between 1991 and 1995, only 13 percent of non salary spending on education reached the schools.

Education offices at the district level had been keeping most of the non salary funding—as well as the bulk of the tuition fees paid by parents.

Schools and districts were required to make public the amount of government money they received.

Schools were also given more direct control over resources. Allocations were deposited directly into individual school accounts, and schools became responsible for buying their own goods rather than relying on central purchasing at the district level.

By 2001, 80 percent of budgeted funds were reaching the schools, as intended

A basic performance benchmark is the satisfaction of citizens and the quality of their interaction with the public sector.

In Bangalore, the capital of the state of Karnataka, India, such information is presented in the form of performance report cards by the Public Affairs Centre (PAC).

Respondents were asked to describe the quality of the services they had received in the past six months: their overall satisfaction, staff behavior, how many visits were required to solve a problem, and whether the problem was actually solved.

The 1993 and 1999 surveys found low overall levels of satisfaction with services. Relative to middle-income households, the poor had to visit agencies more often to solve a problem, were more likely to have to pay a bribe (usually to police), and were less likely to have their problems solved.

PAC developed the report card format and aggressively promoted the report cards to the media.

The responses from agency heads and senior government officials were polite but lukewarm except for a few agencies.

PAC organized workshops. In one session public officials met with one another to discuss the efforts they were making to address criticisms. In another session representatives from the agencies met with the public and discussed the problems raised by the report cards.

The chief minister of Karnataka created a “Bangalore Agenda Task Force” that included prominent city residents in an effort to offer responses to the problems identified. The Bangalore City Corporation also promoted an informal network of NGOs and city officials called Swabhimana (self-esteem) (Paul 1998).

The 2003 round of report cards surveyed more than 1,700 households. These surveys found increased satisfaction with almost all agencies, a lower incidence of problems, and less corruption (

Why Government Matters? Administrators have substantial power in determining how

much influence to share (the level of participation) and which groups or individual citizens to involve (the range of participation).

The attitude of governments is a major predictor of whether participation will be undertaken and whether it will be meaningful.

Painter (2002) argues that the main determinant of successful participation was the role of government: “Government will and expectations strongly determine the quality of the process. An active, capable, and experienced civil society is helpful in influencing the quality of the participatory process, but not determinative.”

How Can Citizen Participation Enhance Development?

Citizens have the best knowledge of their needs, their preferences, and local conditions

Citizen participation improves vertical, or social, accountability.

Participatory budgeting has the potential to improve the quality of democracy. Participation in public decision making is a form of direct democracy that allows for a more meaningful democratic relationship between citizens and government than that provided by representative democracy (McGee 2003).

1. INITIATIVES THAT IMPROVE TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY

It attempts to bring information on citizens’ opinions and preferences to the attention of subnational governments.

This level of participation relies on the quality of the information needed to persuade decision makers to change development and funding priorities.

Getting ordinary citizens involved requires that the analysis be easy to understand and relevant to the concerns of average citizens

The involvement of ordinary citizens strengthens civil society groups’ efforts at monitoring and auditing public projects and services in a systematic way.

Founded in 1985 as a trade union and a tribal welfare organization, DISHA aims to improve the living conditions of the large tribal populations in Gujarat.

Pathey (DISHA unit) analyzes issues in the state budget of special relevance to poor tribal people. Pathey distributes its findings simultaneously to legislators and target population groups.

DISHA built a network of nongovernmental groups, including trade unions, to create a coalition for dialogue with the government. DISHA/Pathey also launched campaigns to inform and educate state legislators and officials on budget findings.

In fact, a third of the people who receive material about the budget undertake follow-up action.

Members of the state legislature, political parties, and senior public servants make significant use of Pathey’s findings and suggestions (Paul 2005a;Wagle and Shah 2003).

Paul (2005a) argues that programmatic shifts in budget allocations are far less likely to result from arm’s length participation than they are from direct citizen involvement in funding decisions.

There are two types of this initiatives1. Indirect participation in the budgeting process

(Consultation)2. Direct participation in the budgeting process (Joint

Decision Making)

The local government decides if and when consultation will take place, sets the agenda for consultation, and, to a degree, determines who will be consulted.

In particular, citizens may be consulted only on “safe” public policy issues that are not sensitive or resource consuming.

In fact, several risks attach to consultation of this nature, particularly if initiated and controlled by the state.

This is not to say that consultation is always an ineffective participatory mechanism. Whether it is effective depends largely on the intention of the local government and the institutional arrangements

The ordinance states that the city government of Naga should recognize that “the will of the people shall always reign supreme” and that the primary duty of the government is to ensure that this will is carried out.

The ordinance proposes a partnership with NGOs and people’s organizations for the conception, implementation, and evaluation of all government activities and functions.

The city created the Naga City People’s Council, made up of businesspeople, citizens, and NGOs. Members of the council have to be accredited by the city

The city alos conducts multilevel consultations on priorities for development and holds citywide referendums on local issues

Ex: Capacity Building of Union Parishads Srajganj District, Bangladesh

In 2000 the government of Bangladesh, UNDP, and UNCDF jointly initiated the Srajganj local government development project, aimed at developing capacity for participatory processes at the lowest tier of local government, the union parishads.

The project consists of two interventions: Provision of annual block grants of about $6,000 to each union

for allocation to projects in wards The institutionalization of open budget sessions to establish

citizen engagement with the local budget.

In Indonesia local communities have established village councils and development forums that exercise full control over the allocation and use of the block grant to the village. The Kecamatan Development Program (KDP) targets the poorest kecamatans (subdistricts) in Indonesia.

It aims to foster more democratic and participatory forms of local governance by strengthening kecamatan and village capacities and improving community participation in development projects.

The project covers 30 percent of villages at this level, touching the lives of 10 million people. It is supported by facilitators and consultants at both the village and national levels who provide technical support and training.

Improved policy decisiveness. Increased accountability of public officials

and elected representatives Better democracy Greater trust in government

1. The environment in which the participation initiative is launched

a. The nature of the formal and informal political systemb. The willingness of state and local government official

to listenc. Legal institutional, and policy frameworks for

participationd. Clear functional decentralization frameworke. The budgeting environment, including linkages

between planning and budgetingf. The civic culture and civic capacity for participation

2. The design and implementation of participatory iniatives.

SEKIANDAN

TERIMAKASIH