Problems and Purpose
The Participatory Budgeting process is the process of citizens' incidence in municipal public decisions, which can range from the definition of projects to the supervision of the management of those projects.
The PP have been designed to help improve the quality of democracy in general, starting with the strengthening of local democracy. The PP seek to place citizens as the axis of the management of local governments, understood as active political subjects and with particular and diverse interests. From this perspective, PPs are instruments that:
- They propose to overcome the idea of mere clients or users of municipal services, in favor of the principle of co-responsibility.
- They recognize the ability to make diagnoses, define investment priorities, propose initiatives, projects and programs, and supervise public management, while achieving greater transparency in public management.
- They generate trust and collaborative work between authorities and citizens
- Improves information and communication channels between local government and citizens
- Improves efficiency in investment of resources
- Promotes in citizens the development of solidarity and cooperation in the search for solutions to problems;
The implementation processes had a number of obstacles, including:
- Rejection by some members of the Council, who saw in this initiative an excessive role for the mayor or a loss of influence in decisions regarding issues such as grants, investment funds and other mechanisms for delivering benefits to the community.
- Resistance of some officials to change their work habits (schedules, direct dialogue with citizens and the risks of conflicts and tensions).
- Limited or insufficient investment resources to respond to the needs of the community, which could generate conflicts of expectations and frustration on the part of citizens that could make the process fail.
In contrast to these difficulties, we can also mention some strengths:
- Mayors and councilors motivated, without fear of loss of power with this experience.
Groups of officials with the capacity to innovate and encourage others and authorities for the development of the PB.
History
Until a few years ago, participatory budgets as a mechanism for effective citizen participation and transparent allocation of resources were practically unknown in Chile. Since 2003, several municipalities have implemented PP, including Illapel, Buin, Cerro Navia, among other communes. The type of link that arises between the municipality and the community through the PB allows discussing issues on issues ranging from the pavement or the arrangement of the headquarters, to those involving issues of local public policy, education, health, citizen security , employment, environment, among others.
Originating Entities and Funding
NGO Confluencia: Organizing institution of the initiative, which is part of the cooperation agreement.
- Financial: $ 75,828,000
- Human: two professionals in charge of the implementation. Full time.
- Materials: vehicles, computers, stationery.
ETA Ltda .: Professional technical support.
- Humans: two field support professionals. Part time.
- Materials: vehicles, computers, stationery.
Municipality of Illapel: It is part of the cooperation agreement.
- Human: diverse professionals and technicians according to specific themes.
- Materials: vehicles, computers, stationery.
Organized Community: It is part of the cooperation agreement.
- Financial: $ 9,000,000
Participant Selection
The actors that participate in the development of the PB are:
- Political actors: mayor and councilors. In all cases, the support and political will provided by the mayor has been essential for the success of the process.
- Municipal officials. Since they have been linked to social organizations, especially the Community Development Directorate.
- Social Organizations. The social organizations that participate in the PP are territorial, such as Neighborhood Councils, and functional such as Committees for urban and rural health, drinking water, electricity, housing, cultural and religious groups, sports clubs, etc.
Citizens. There is participation of citizens without the need to hold leadership positions or formally represent any social organization.
Deliberation, Decisions, and Public Interaction
The formulation of the PB in Illapel is defined in article 26 of its Citizen Participation Ordinance, namely: “Participatory Municipal Management is a methodology of communal public co-management, which is implemented through a mechanism for the allocation of municipal, sectoral and private resources. of resources transferred from other levels of the State, in which the citizens of the commune debate municipal management and prioritize a set of local public projects destined to satisfy the needs of the population ”.
In the municipality of Illapel, the structure of the PP is regulated and incorporated in the municipal ordinance, which implies that it is part of municipal management. In Illapel, the PP is led by the Rural and Urban Neighbors Boards and supported by the Municipality. To implement the PP, the commune was divided into 11 territories, 5 urban and 6 rural. Each territory summons its associates to a meeting, where the needs of the community are made known. The areas (education, health, work) are prioritized and then deliberated: there each neighbor directly, raises the need (s) of their sector. The system is by direct vote by show of hands. In a second instance, which we could call inter-territorial, the delegates of the 11 territories meet to define the main needs of their sector and other sectors in general. In this instance, criteria are established that help define the prioritization of needs.
The PP begins in April or May of each year, the date on which the Mayor and the councilors officially give a public account of the budget management of the previous year and of the commitments acquired in the municipal management of the current year in the eleven Territorial Assemblies. Then, in each territory, the organizations convened by the neighborhood councils meet to carry out participatory dialogues (especially applying brainstorming and problem tree), and define their main interests and needs for the coming year.
In the territorial assemblies, a titular delegate from the participatory budget and an alternate one are also elected for one year, and they may be re-elected up to two consecutive times. The number of meetings that are held in each territory to define problems is not previously defined, and it depends on how many are required for it, which is relative in each one. The objectives of these assemblies are: a) to receive the information on the public account delivered by the Mayor in the territorial assemblies; b) prioritize the importance of thematic areas of municipal work; c) prioritize the demands of the neighborhood unit to propose for municipal management next year; and d) ratify or elect the delegates in charge of taking these demands to the different instances that the PP implies.
Once the round of territorial assemblies is carried out, an assembly of the PP delegates is held (which in this case comes to be 22 delegates), who meet with the municipal officials in a large assembly where all the previously defined needs are raised and ordered in and by each territory. In this assembly, the first issue is to agree on what will be the criteria to prioritize the needs brought by each of the 22 delegates, representatives of the 11 territories. Finally, this group of delegates presents the demands to the Municipal Council, which generally tend to be 3 per territory, instance, which sanctions them and decides on their execution.
After this process, the “Monitoring Commission” is elected, made up of social leaders and citizens, political actors and municipal officials. Said Commission meets during the months of August and November in order to review the status of the commitments acquired in relation to the demands of the community, and to adopt measures to ensure their fulfillment.
Influence, Outcomes, and Effects
- Structuring and prioritization of citizen demands, which has materialized through the construction of investment proposals for the 2004 Municipal Budget made by the community.
- Strengthening of social organizations: support and training have been achieved for leaders of the Communal Unions of Urban and Rural Neighborhood Councils; New social leaders have been trained (delegates and councilors of the Participatory Budget) and the newspaper 'Confluzando' has been published, a means of dissemination of the social organizations of the commune.
- Promotion of citizen participation: through the holding of 66 meetings in neighborhood councils, with the participation of 1,290 people, in which the thematic areas of municipal work and their local demands have been prioritized.
- Citizen oversight: 10 general assemblies have been held (6 rural and 4 urban) in which the mayor gave an account of the 2002 budget, with the participation of 354 leaders of 230 grassroots organizations.
Systematization of the demands by the delegates and advisers of the participatory budget to present to the Municipal Council, for which the Participatory Budget Monitoring Commission was created.
Analysis and Criticism
Several years into this municipal modernization process, the diagnoses carried out by the government and non-governmental organizations show that municipal performance has been partially improved in the operational areas and management procedures, that is, in the quality, effectiveness and efficiency of the provision of public services. However, democratic strengthening, understood as a participatory management style that implies information, control and citizen oversight of municipal management, is still very incipient and does not register major substantive progress. In this aspect, a functional citizen participation is observed to the requirements of social policies, focused on consultation and diagnosis and with a predominance of a technocratic municipal management style and concentrated on the technical efficiency of the management. In addition, the criticisms summarized at the beginning of the article are added.
Secondary Sources
"Commune of Illapel". Illapel 2005.