The YOUth Making It Happen Participatory Budgeting Project targeted 12–25-year-olds from eight Derry, Northern Ireland, neighbourhoods. It encouraged young people to participate in local public money allocation to improve their areas.
Problems and Purpose
The voices and ideas of young people are a force that cannot be ignored in deliberative democracy. However, in Northern Ireland, how to get young people to participate more effectively in the process of democratic deliberation to express their ideas is a long-standing problem. So, a project called YOUth Making It Happen has been launched in Derry, Northern Ireland. The project is part of the Carnegie UK Trust's Embedded Wellbeing program in Northern Ireland. The project has raised over £20,000 so far, with the support of Derry City and Strabane Local Council. The funds raised will be used as project rewards for young people who have put forward constructive proposals for regional governance, aiming to encourage young people involved in the project to come up with ideas, proposals or plans for district management and attract more young people to participate in deliberative democracy in the region [1].
Background History & Context
The so-called participatory budgeting is actually a process of deliberative democracy. In a nutshell, specific stakeholders decide how to allocate public budgets through discussion and voting. It was first born in Porto Alegre, Brazil and slowly spread to the world over time. During this process, different regions have evolved different forms of participatory budgeting. In Northern Ireland, the concept of youth participation in budgeting is relatively new and there is relatively little practice of it.
In Northern Ireland, it is always difficult for young people to participate in regional governance. First of all, young people lack access to district administration, which hinders their participation in regional governance. Second, there is a general perception in society that young people lack experience in public administration. So their advice is often ignored or discouraged. As a result, their enthusiasm for participating in public administration has been discouraged. In addition, because young people lack a sense of “protagonist”, in other words, they do not realize that they are also the owners of the region, most of them will show apathy to politics or community management. Thus, there are reluctant to speak out. If young people can actively express their attitudes towards regional governance, it can inject fresh blood into the operation and management of regional life, providing new perspectives and new ways of doing things for the regional governance. When they are given the opportunity to take on leadership roles, their contribution to all areas of life is evident. Young people are free to think, share ideas and challenge the status quo, which are the key elements needed to build healthy and prosperous societies [2]. Alderman Graham Warke, Mayor of Derry and Strabane, believed that the power of young people is a key factor in improving the development of a city or region, and creating opportunities for young people to participate in social management is a priority in the regional development strategy. As mayor, he really wants to hear from local young people and make sure they have a voice in the decisions being made here. He wants to do his best to create more opportunities for young people to contribute and have their voices heard [3]. So, in February 2020, the YMIH project came into being in Derry, Northern Ireland.
Next, we need to introduce the origin of YMIH. YMIH is not a participatory budgeting project unique to the Derry area. Because of its function of encouraging young people to participate in regional governance through participatory budgeting, it is supported by the Derry regional government and carried out. In fact, YMIH is an international participatory budgeting project founded in Poland in September 2019. During the two years from 2019 to 2021, the plan completed its action guidebook and trained a number of teachers and youth workers to help implement the plan [4]. Judging from the founding purpose of YMIH, compared with participating in formal parliamentary elections or voting, participating in participatory budgeting requires less knowledge of public administration for young people, in other words, the threshold for participation is lower for young people. This allows young people to learn about their opportunities to co-manage their communities and participate in decisions about how public funds are spent through participation in participatory budgeting, which requires less political literacy [5]. That is why choose participatory budgeting as the core scheme of the project.
Organizing, Supporting, and Funding Entities
The leader of the YMIH project in Derry is called the Youth Co-Design Panel. This organization is composed of ten young people from the region. The youngest of them is only 14 years old, and the oldest one is 25 years old. They are rich with experience involved in youth organizations, including but not limited to the United Nations Youth Initiative [3]. In this plan, they represented different schools or organizations and participated in the leadership of the project. They focus on the planning and design of the YMIH deployment process in the Derry region. For example, topics on the PB process; how young people can participate; PB criteria; timescales; how resources will be allocated and how the process can be facilitated; make information available on the YMIH website. Of course, this is inseparable from the support of the district council and various community officials. Some of the officers also act as organizers of the project, including the Children and Youth Coordinator, Strategic Projects Officer, Strategic Business Manager and Communications and Marketing Officer. With their support, this participatory budgeting activity has official guarantees and can be carried out smoothly.
The organization of the project also relies on the support of Community Places. First of all, Community Places provides meeting rooms for project planners to discuss plans, and the organizers have enough space to strengthen mutual understanding and connection through face-to-face ice-breaking activities. In addition, such an exclusive space encourages the organizers of the event to express their views and ideas about the event with peace of mind and confidence, so that everyone can get safety and respect.
The project has raised over £20,000 to build community and inspire young people to generate ideas to help cities become better and have a brighter future. Some of this funding comes from Derry City & Strabane District Council [6].
Participant Recruitment and Selection
The main purpose of this project is to allow young people to participate in democratic decision-making and to contribute to society, The recruitment rules set for this purpose are as follows. First of all, Young people who aged from 12- 25 years can take part in giving ideas through filling the forms on official website. There are no restrictions on identity, occupation, or race. The purpose is to attract as many young people of this age as possible to contribute their wisdom so as to make our society better. Youngster could also cooperate with others but the maximum of each working group is 2 people.if someone who aged from 12-15 want to get involved with the project, they should be sponsored by an adult or supported by an mentor, which is the rule made by The Youth Co-Design Panel.
Methods and Tools Used
The primary approach employed was participatory budgeting, in which local youngsters are expected to make direct decisions on how to spend a portion of the government's budget. In this instance, online voting for Youth Participatory Budgeting served as the guiding principle. In contrast to the conventional participatory budgeting process, which tends to be open to all participants, the youth participatory budgeting method focuses on young people who are full of innovative ideas but seldom make decisions about public concerns. Youth are permitted to gather ideas, prepare plans, and promote community improvement initiatives for which they cast deciding votes during the process [7].
When it comes to specific approaches, several tools are used, sequenced, or integrated. It included the Youth Co-design workshop/panel, social media marketing and online voting.
Co-design Workshop/Panel
The objective of the Co-design workshops was to design the entire process for the implementation process, including the planning of the procedure via zoom workshops, the verification of the criteria check process, agreement on the voting process, determination of budget allocations, and the design of the learning and evaluation process content.
Social Media Marketing
During the stage of preparation, the co-design workshop designed an official website for providing detailed information about the YMIH PB [8]. The Co-design panel also made an engaging promotional video on You-tube [9].
Both mayors, Brain Tierney and Graham Warke, posted relevant information to their social media accounts (Twitter and YouTube, respectively) [10].
Online Voting
If we had used this resource throughout the decision-making process, we would have known for sure which groups should be given funding to put their ideas into action.
There were three major reasons why it should occur online. Firstly, because the participants' ideas were given as online films, it would be advantageous for the voters to make meaningful judgements using the same medium, an online platform. Also, owing to the youth-centric nature of the project as a whole, online voting might increase youth participation. Because of the inclusivity, it is feasible to convince the generally indifferent audience, particularly young voters, to engage in the election process, provided the organizer employs an effective marketing strategy [11]. In addition, it was more possible and cost-effective to publish it online as opposed to in person due to the circumstances surrounding the outbreak, such as further social isolation measures and school closures. On the other side, young people whose families cannot afford an Internet-capable gadget may be excluded from the online voting process. Therefore, prospective voters with similar personalities or financial backgrounds may have some positive or negative effect on the ultimate voting outcomes.
What Went On: Deliberation, Decisions, and Public Interaction
The YMIH PB process included the following stages:
Preplanning
- PB Youth Planning Meetings were held in February 2020.
- Promotion and Awareness Raising in March-April 2020.
- The initiative launched in August 2020.
Idea collection
- Step1: The process of collecting applications (01/04/2020-24/04/2020)
- Step 2: PB Youth Planning Meeting Check Applications on 27 April 2020
- Step 3: Contact Successful Applicants and invite them to submit videos.
Voting process
- It lasted from18th May 2020 to 25th May 2020
- Online-voting were held for three times during the period
Celebration and delivery the winner projects
- Celebration Event was held on the end of September 2020.
Monitoring and evaluation
- The content of the evaluation process was conducted by the Co-design panel via qualitative methods, such as personal interview and questionnaires.
On the first stage, the beginning of the project was supposed to be 1th February of 2020, however it was postponed due to Covid-19 until 1th August of 2020. On 8 September the Mayor formally launched ‘YOUth Making It Happen’ on the Grow Derry Strabane website [6].
Then, after the initiative of the project, full details including the application process and criteria were released on the Grow Derry Strabane website [6]. At the same time, the organizer held a marketing campaign,such as press releases and targeted social media posts. The objective is to entice young people from around the council area to submit their ideas on how to improve things via a brief online application followed by a video submission.
After submitting their ideas via a brief online form on the YMIH (Youth Making It Happen) website, the online applications would be compared to the criteria agreed upon by the Youth Co-design Panel, which include Safe, Legal, Feasible (within Budget and Timescale), Youth-Centred, and In-line with one of the six themes. Once an application was deemed unsuitable, it was sent to a smaller group of Youth Co-design Panel members who handled the criteria review process.
The winning concepts would get funding and ultimately be implemented in the real world based on the results of the final online vote.
Influence, Outcomes, and Effects
Participants filled out assessment papers at the Celebration Event held at the Jon Clifford Park Basketball Court in July 2021, one of the successful projects [1]. According to the findings, 85% of participants believed they were able to influence decision-making and would participate in other PB projects. According to the findings, 85% of participants believed they were able to influence decision-making and would participate in another PB process [1]. In addition, 85 percent of participants believed that all of the initiatives would be beneficial to the region and community and were inspired by what they saw and heard. Some of them loved voting for the project ideas, enjoyed the process, and felt as if they had made a constructive contribution to their community [1].
Analysis and Lesson Learned
It is a relatively new way for the government to let young people take part in public management. This can help make society more fair and give young people more chances to show what they can do. In Northern Ireland, it's hard for young people to have a say in how the region is run. Mainly, there are two reasons: First, young people don't have a way to get involved in running the government. When making public administration policies, policymakers or the government often don't take into account the ideas and opinions of young people. This makes it hard for young people to really take part in public administration. Second, young people are often thought to be inexperienced in running the government, so their ideas are not taken seriously. So, young people lose interest in participating in public management, which gives the public the wrong impression that young people don't care about public management[1]. Youth PB in Derry, Northern Ireland, has gotten a lot more young people involved in public administration. It has also gotten a lot more young people involved in the public management of society and given the public management of the city and the country a new spark. With the change of social times, people's ideas have changed from one generation to the next, and the youth can help the government make decisions by giving them new and unique information.
The six areas in which young people can propose their own ideas are Arts and Culture, Community and Environment, Education and Skills, Equality and Inclusion, Safety, and Sport- Health and Wellbeing. The topic of these voting projects also reflects the contemporary youth's acute awareness that certain features of their current living environment do not adequately suit the demands of all urban adolescents (such as environment, safety). A group of young people with a focus on enhancing health and well-being, for instance, provided policymakers with imaginative construction ideas and concepts that breathed fresh life into policymaking and execution. On a fundamental level, projects like this that strive to include youth participation in decision-making offer the chance to hear youth opinions on the needs of their communities.
Young people have their own unique ideas and perspectives on the current social development and governance, but they cannot find an appropriate outlet to communicate their constructive opinions; therefore, they devised a capital project to address this issue. This was the original intent of the Youth PB initiatives in Derry and Northern Ireland. This case also demonstrates that some practical principles of public management are not mere rhetoric. What young desire to play in public management is not just the job of advising, but also the advisory role in decision-making[3]. They favour having influence over policy decisions[4].
The whole Youth Making It Happen process was led by young people through a Youth Co Design Panel, with the help of Derry City and Strabane District Local Authority as part of a Carnegie UK Trust Embedding Well-being in Northern Ireland programme.
Young people take part, organise, and get something out of these processes, which makes them much more likely to get involved in the whole process of making public policy. Online voting is helpful because it makes sure that the participatory budgeting policy is carried out in a fair and unbiased way.
But COVID-19 is the main thing that makes this project hard to do. It caused delays and made it necessary to make a lot of changes to the plan. This project has been put on hold from February 2020 to July 2020 because of a very serious public health crisis. Some young people said that they couldn't go to school or out in the community because of the Corona Virus.
The political support from two mayors (Mayor Brian Tierney and Mayor Graham Warke) and senior management, including the council's chief executive, was deemed crucial by the youth. This allowed the project to proceed regardless of the difficulties and delays induced by COVID-19. They felt that this demonstrated the need and significance of involving and empowering young people. Representatives from the Co-Design Panel stated that they would like to see more chances for participatory budgeting (PB) throughout the City and District so that PB becomes more ingrained and an integral part of how young people exercise local democracy.
The organisers have given us three tips:
1. How important it is for young people to talk to their friends about the YOUTH Making It Happen process, using their networks and preferred social media, like Instagram instead of Twitter or Facebook.
2. Give the young people who take part credit for being there. For example, a YMIH Certificate of Participation was given to the Co-Design Panel and a representative from each successful group. The Mayor gave the certificates to the kids at a party held outside at the Jon Clifford Park Basketball Court, which was one of the winning PB project ideas.
3. Made it easy for Community Places to help PB with planning and designing the process.
There are glaring contrasts between this project and the general participatory budget, which are mostly illustrated by the following: the general participatory budget is for the public, which implies that all members of society can participate equally in the process of public decision-making. The project is a youth participatory budget initiative that primarily targets young people with fresh and original ideas who do not currently have the opportunity to participate in public administration operations. Therefore, this project gives such young individuals with an opportunity and platform to demonstrate their management talents in a genuine manner.
This project will give young people the opportunity to participate in public budgetary decisions. If young people have a suggestion, they can submit it to the government and receive backing from local council officers. The projects cover a variety of themes, such as health and well-being, social isolation, leadership, and the environment, and were chosen by online voters (12-25). It is the first time that young people have designed and implemented a participatory budgeting scheme in this location, and the lessons learned will inform any future PB projects. The committee collaborated closely with the Community Planning team of the Council and Community Places to determine all aspects of the process, from topics to award criteria. Due to the Covid-19 regulations that limited participation and imposed additional conditions on the procedure, they encountered a lot of difficulties along the route. However, the team was able to overcome these obstacles by utilising a variety of alternate methods to implement the concept.
Impact on the democratic goods
Inclusiveness
The main participants are: the youth aged 12-25 from 8 local areas across Derry City, North Ireland. Also, there are 1000 people selected from participants and they can have a direct say on how to spend the public resources on the local regions. In this program, the organizers encouraged the youth to take part in the PB actively and this project raised around 20,000 pounds which can support the youth’s participation and ensure that the activity went on smoothly. The project has now attracted 1,000 people, but overall, the number of participants is still insufficient, although to some extent, it can represent the whole 12-25 age group, but it is not comprehensive enough. At the same time, the project only makes age requirements for the participants, which will lead to certain differences in knowledge level, management experience and other aspects. So, it may affect the expected results of the project.
Popular control
Below we discuss the four phases of the project separately. First of all, in the problem definition stage, the leader of the project are composed of representatives from different regions, in other words, the project initiation group organized by young people representing the interests of various regions and organizations, aiming to arouse the awareness of young people and inspire young people to participate in public administration. Therefore, the problem definer of the project represents the interests of the majority of participants. It can be said that this stage is in the hands of the participants.
Secondly, from the stage of selection analysis, the suggestions and plans submitted by young people participating in the project will be reviewed by the Youth Co-Design Panel, that is to say, the suggestions and plans received in the project will be reviewed by the leader of the project to identify what works and what doesn't. It can be seen that in the stage of selection analysis, the degree of public control is relatively low.
Third, from the stage of option selection, similar to the previous stage, the option selection will also be mastered by the Youth Co-Design Panel. The leading organization will select the best from the received proposals through 10 workshops. Then reward the proposal proposer. It can be seen that the actual degree of public participation in the program selection process is relatively low.
Fourth, from the implementation stage, the selected excellent proposal will be handed over to the corresponding government agencies for implementation. The provider of the excellent plan, in other words, the public participating in this project, will participate in the implementation process of his plan as a consultant for the implementation of the plan. It can be said that this stage guarantees the public's control to a greater extent. The entire implementation of the plan will be subject to public scrutiny.
Considered judgement
In Northern Ireland, youth participatory budgets have been developed, but some problems are still prominent, such as: young people don’t have the power to participate in regional governance; society has prejudices or stereotypes about young people who are unable to participate in governance and don’t have enough management experience; young people themselves lack of management awareness and indifferent attitude towards social governance.
Transparency
The project divided participants into groups of at least two people, which uploaded their ideas to the YMIH website by filling out online forms, and then asked young people aged 12-25 to vote on the questions they are most interested in. In this way, this project provided support and guarantee for young people to truly participate in the public administration, while also ensuring the openness and fairness of this activity. At the same time, after the launch of the project, all the details of the whole project process, participants and other details were published on the YMIH website, broadening the way for the wider public to open the review.
Efficiency
The whole project cost about £20,000 and included a personal creative bonus of up to £1,000 to motivate eligible young people to actively participate in the project. It is worth mentioning that the project has achieved good effects to some extent. Through group voting, some representative and creative ideas were selected, which is conducive to further stimulate young people's enthusiasm for participatory budgeting and support young people to truly express their unique ideas. Thus, this project makes Derry City, Northern Ireland's public management activities more youth-focused and the entire management process more open.
Transferability
In this instance, the YOUTH PB is a relatively new format. It blends the notion of prize money with a financial pre-contest by staging a competition. The application is mostly pushed to younger age groups via the use of online platforms.This is a constructive notion. However, its transferability is very restricted due to the fact that the unique implementation techniques are so intimately intertwined with the case's facts.
External Links
https://youthpb.eu/project/youth-participatory-budgeting-in-derry-northern-ireland/#project-map
https://growderrystrabane.com/how-were-making-it-happen/youthpb/
http://www.participatorybudgetingworks.org/map/view/14/youth-making-it-happen
https://youthpb.eu/resource/interview-with-liam-participant-in-the-youth-making-it-happen-pb/
https://growderrystrabane.com/strategic-growth-partnership/meetings/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpZucFv_B_k
https://twitter.com/mayordcsdc/status/1418575663649406978
https://youthpb.eu/resource/interview-with-liam-participant-in-the-youth-making-it-happen-pb/
Notes
This case study was developed by Yaqi Yin, Feifan Wu, Zeyu Tan and Xiaohan Feng during the class Collective Intelligence at Southampton University in the Fall of 2022.
References
[1] Youth PB. (n.d.). Youth participatory budgeting in Derry, Northern Ireland. [online] Available at: https://youthpb.eu/project/youth-participatory-budgeting-in-derry-northern-ireland/ [Accessed 17 Dec. 2022].
[2] Youthaction.org. (2018). YouthAction Northern Ireland. [online] Available at: https://www.youthaction.org/.
[3] McAree, A. (2021). Derry young people making a difference in their communities. [online] BelfastLive. Available at: https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/mayor-pays-tribute-inspirational-young-21052305 [Accessed 17 Dec. 2022].
[4] Youth PB. (n.d.). Timeline. [online] Available at: https://youthpb.eu/timeline/ [Accessed 17 Dec. 2022].
[5] Youth PB. (n.d.). About the project. [online] Available at: https://youthpb.eu/about/ [Accessed 17 Dec. 2022].
[6] Grow Derry Strabane. (n.d.). Strategic Growth Partnership - February 26th 2020. [online] Available at: https://growderrystrabane.com/strategic-growth-partnership-february-26th-2020/ [Accessed 17 Dec. 2022].
[7] Augsberger, A., Gecker, W. and Collins, M.E. (2018). ‘We make a direct impact on people’s lives’: Youth empowerment in the context of a youth-led participatory budgeting project. Journal of Community Psychology, 47(3), pp.462–476. doi:10.1002/jcop.22131.
[8] Grow Derry Strabane. (n.d.). Partnership Members | Derry Strabane Strategic Growth Partnership | Plan. [online] Available at: https://growderrystrabane.com/how-were-making-it-happen/youthpb/ [Accessed 11 Dec. 2022].
[9] Official Twitter of Derry City & Strabane District Council. (2020). [online] Available at: https://twitter.com/dcsdcouncil/status/1303294749718306818?s=20&t=vt0CWTvTwEMjpulAeff1Og [Accessed 12 Dec. 2022].
[10] Mayor Derry Strabane. (2021). [online] Twitter. Available at: https://twitter.com/mayordcsdc/status/1415345069629054977?s=20&t=vt0CWTvTwEMjpulAeff1Og [Accessed 12 Dec. 2022].
[11] Christian Schaupp, L. and Carter, L. (2005). E‐voting: from apathy to adoption. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 18(5), pp.586–601. doi:10.1108/17410390510624025.
[12] Grow Derry Strabane. (n.d.). Strategic Growth Partnership - July 2nd 2020. [online] Available at: https://growderrystrabane.com/strategic-growth-partnership-july-2nd-2020/ [Accessed 15 Dec. 2022].
[13] Sloam, J. 2007.” Rebooting Democracy: Youth Participation in Politics in the UK.” Parliamentary Affairs 60 (4): 548–567. doi: 10.1093/pa/gsm035.
[14] Collins, M. E. et al. (2018) ” What Does Youth-Led Participatory Budgeting Reveal About Youth Priorities? Ideas, Votes, and Decisions,” Journal of Youth Studies, 21(4), pp. 476–494. doi: 10.1080/13676261.2017.1394994.
[15] Faulkner, K. M. 2009.” Presentation and Representation: Youth Participation in Ongoing Public Decision-Making Projects.” Childhood (copenhagen, Denmark) 16 (1): 89–104.
[16] Adu-Gyamfi, J. 2013. “Can Children and Young People be Empowered in Participatory Initiatives? Perspectives from Young People’s Participation in Policy Formulation and Implementation in Ghana.” Children and Youth Services Review 35: 1766–1772. doi: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2013.08.003
