CitizenLab's Blog
  • Platform
  • Services
  • Resources
    • Blog
    • Guides
  • About
  • Contact
  • Schedule a demo
  • English
    • Français
    • Nederlands
  • Home
  • >
  • 🏛️ Blog
  • >
  • Participatory Budget: The Beginners Guide

Participatory Budget: The Beginners Guide

By Julie Garrigues Civic Engagement 20/12/2016
CitizenLab's Blog
  • Platform
  • Services
  • Resources
    • Blog
    • Guides
  • About
  • Contact
  • Schedule a demo
  • English
    • Français
    • Nederlands

A participatory budget is an innovative policymaking tool which directly involves citizens in policy decisions. It was first used in 1989 in Brazil and, since then, 1,500 times participatory budgets have been implemented across 5 different continents. 

Participatory Budget Across the World
Source: Sintomer et al. (2010)

Tell Me More About Participatory Budget

With a participatory budget, citizens have the opportunity to allocate resources, prioritize social policies, and monitor public spending. Any local government, no matter its number of inhabitants, can implement a participatory budget.

How did it start?

In 1989, in Porto Alegre, the Worker’s Party, a progressive political party, win the local elections with a campaign based on citizen engagement and participatory democracy. The party implements a participatory budget in order that non-elected citizens can decide how to allocate public money. Citizens help poorer districts and neighbourhoods receive greater levels of public spending.

With this participatory budget, citizens had direct decision-making power at the local level, co-decision power at the city level, and oversight power at all levels. To make it easier, the citizens were divided into neighbourhood groups and the projects were ranked by priorities and topics such as housing, urban infrastructures, healthcare, education, youth, culture, and sports.

The municipality implemented the final budget and together with the citizens monitored the progress of the projects.

Hollie Gilman on Participatory Budgeting 

The success of this first experiment in Porto Alegre was so great that the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme dubbed participatory budgeting best practice for democratic innovation.

And now?

In Latin America

In Porto Alegre, the number of citizens participating grew fast: in 1990, almost a thousand citizens participated and in 1992 nearly 8,000. Also, the number of participatory budgets skyrocketed in Brazil. In 2008, there were around 200 (!) participatory budgets and 41% of the cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants used one. By 2010, around 900 cities out of 16,000 had implemented one as well.

In Europe

[clickToTweet tweet=”Between 2005 and 2012, 8 million of European citizens have been involved in participatory budget” quote=”Between 2005 and 2012, the number or participatory budgets increased from 55 to 1,300. 8 million of European citizens have been involved in a participatory budgeting.”]

Why Implement a Participatory Budget?

Participatory Budget
Why Implement a Participatory Budget?

1) Get Citizens on Board

More and more citizens want their local governments to have an open and transparent policymaking process. A participatory budget makes public funding transparent and allows citizens to decide and monitor the allocation of resources. As a consequence, citizens want to engage more with their municipality. Also, to convince citizens to participate, a city or a town can leverage the will of their citizens to pay taxes. By implementing such initiatives of financial transparency and citizen engagement, city officials strengthen their chance of re-election.

2) Better Allocation of Resources

Participatory budgets can support social justice. Indeed, local governments can create a Quality of Life Index to allocate ressources more efficiently. This index assesses which are the poorer and the wealthier regions or neighbourhoods so that the city knows where resources are most needed. In addition, it leaves less room for waste.

3) Empower Citizens

Participatory budget requires citizens to be educated about financial resources, social issues and policies. Also, they must know about the local government organization. Once citizens are better informed, they are more invested. Citizens value controlling how their tax money is spent. Due to this, they feel more empowered and make sure that this money is spent wisely. Furthermore, if cities use an online platform to implement a participatory budget, citizens and city representatives also gain some knowledge of government technology.

Participatory Budget Leads the Way To Citizen Engagement

The main reason to create a participatory budget in Porto Alegre was to restore social justice after years of dictatorship. The process was particularly successful and, since then, has been implemented all around the world.

In Europe, it is the instrument of choice of a local government, city or town who wants to engage with their citizen. It allows them to create a long-lasting relationship with their citizens based on transparency. With this tool, they can better allocate their resources. Also, it empowers citizens through education, participation and monitoring.

To learn more about participatory budgeting, download our beginner’s guide from our resource page.

EnregistrerEnregistrer

citizen engagementparticipatory budget

You May Also Like

CitizenLab Team USA
Civic Engagement 16/06/2022
Introducing CitizenLab’s Team USA
AI for community engagement
Civic Engagement 15/06/2022
How to leverage AI in community engagement
Civic Engagement 14/06/2022
6 tips for multilingual community engagement
Civic Engagement 14/06/2022
What is placemaking and what are examples of it?
Creative community engagement
Civic Engagement 14/06/2022
6 examples of creative ways to engage your community
Written By
Julie Garrigues

Digital Marketing Ninja CitizenLab. Passion for thrilling content creation and citizen empowerment.

Solutions
  • All solutions
  • Strategy & Budgeting
  • Planning & Public Spaces
  • Environment & Sustainability
  • Mobility & Infrastructure
  • Neighborhoods & Community Development
Platform
  • Platform features
  • Services
  • Plans
  • Schedule a demo
Academy
  • Resources
  • Blog
Company
  • About
  • Jobs
  • Partners
Get in touch
  • +44 79 2676 4670
  • +1 530 270 3403
  • Contact form
Blog
Why a participatory budget helps you reach a more diverse audience
How Wichita used public participation to address affordable housing issues
Introducing CitizenLab’s Team USA
© 2022 CitizenLab: Community Engagement Platform. All rights reserved.
By clicking “Accept”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts.
Cookie SettingsAccept
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
CookieDurationDescription
_ga2 yearsThe _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookie stores information anonymously and assigns a randomly generated number to recognize unique visitors.
_gid1 dayInstalled by Google Analytics, _gid cookie stores information on how visitors use a website, while also creating an analytics report of the website's performance. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-advertisement1 yearSet by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin, this cookie is used to record the user consent for the cookies in the "Advertisement" category .
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional11 monthsThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
CookieLawInfoConsent1 yearRecords the default button state of the corresponding category & the status of CCPA. It works only in coordination with the primary cookie.
geot_rocket_citysessionNo description available.
geot_rocket_countrysessionNo description available.
geot_rocket_statesessionNo description available.
PHPSESSIDsessionThis cookie is native to PHP applications. The cookie is used to store and identify a users' unique session ID for the purpose of managing user session on the website. The cookie is a session cookies and is deleted when all the browser windows are closed.
STYXKEY_geot_countrysessionNo description
viewed_cookie_policy11 monthsThe cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
CookieDurationDescription
bcookie2 yearsLinkedIn sets this cookie from LinkedIn share buttons and ad tags to recognize browser ID.
langsessionLinkedIn sets this cookie to remember a user's language setting.
lidc1 dayLinkedIn sets the lidc cookie to facilitate data center selection.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
CookieDurationDescription
_gat_gtag_UA_65562281_11 minuteSet by Google to distinguish users.
_gcl_au3 monthsProvided by Google Tag Manager to experiment advertisement efficiency of websites using their services.
CONSENT2 yearsYouTube sets this cookie via embedded youtube-videos and registers anonymous statistical data.
undefinedneverWistia sets this cookie to collect data on visitor interaction with the website's video-content, to make the website's video-content more relevant for the visitor.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
CookieDurationDescription
_fbp3 monthsThis cookie is set by Facebook to display advertisements when either on Facebook or on a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising, after visiting the website.
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE5 months 27 daysA cookie set by YouTube to measure bandwidth that determines whether the user gets the new or old player interface.
YSCsessionYSC cookie is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos on Youtube pages.
yt-remote-connected-devicesneverYouTube sets this cookie to store the video preferences of the user using embedded YouTube video.
yt-remote-device-idneverYouTube sets this cookie to store the video preferences of the user using embedded YouTube video.
yt.innertube::nextIdneverThis cookie, set by YouTube, registers a unique ID to store data on what videos from YouTube the user has seen.
yt.innertube::requestsneverThis cookie, set by YouTube, registers a unique ID to store data on what videos from YouTube the user has seen.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
CookieDurationDescription
intercom-id-p4lr69wg8 months 26 days 1 hourNo description
intercom-session-p4lr69wg7 daysNo description
loglevelneverNo description available.
trx_addons_is_retina1 yearThis cookie is used for checking if the user has a retina display.
wp-wpml_current_languagesessionNo description available.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
CookieDurationDescription
AMP_TOKEN1 hourThis cookie is set by Google Analytics and contains a token that can be used to retrieve a Client ID from AMP Client ID service. Other possible values indicate opt-out, inflight request or an error retrieving a Client ID from AMP Client ID service.
SAVE & ACCEPT
Powered by CookieYes Logo

Please share your location to continue.

Check our help guide for more info.

share your location