What are the basic conditions necessary to implement participatory budgeting?

There are a number of basic preconditions for the implementation of a Participatory Budget. The first is a clear political will of the Mayor (or leader of the council and councillors) and the other municipal decisionmakers.  Political will is necessary to sustain the entire process. The most visible manifestation of this will be in the implementation phase, when commitments are concretised into tangible investments.

The second is the presence and interest of civil society organizations and better still, of the citizenry in general. This condition is decisive for the sustainability of the exercise.

The third is a clear and shared definition of the rules of the game. These rules refer to the amounts to be discussed, the stages and their respective time periods, the rules for decision-making (and in the case of disagreement, the responsibility and decision-making authority of each actor), the method of distributing responsibility, authority and resources among the different districts and neighbourhoods of the city, and the composition of the Participatory Budget Council. These rules cannot be decided unilaterally. They must be determined with full participation of the population, and subsequently adjusted each year, based on the results and functioning of the process.

The fourth precondition is the will to build the capacity of the population and the municipal officials, on public budgeting in general as well as the Participatory Budget in particular. This entails explaining the amounts, sources of funds and current system of expenditures. It is also important to clarify which areas of public spending are the municipality’s responsibility and which rest beyond the local authority.

A fifth condition is the widespread dissemination of information through all possible means. Dates and venues of meetings, and the rules of the game which have been decided upon, must be shared with the population.

Finally, the sixth precondition is the prioritisation of demands, set by the population and linked to technical criteria that include an analysis of the existing shortfalls in infrastructure and public services. This is important in order to facilitate a fairer distribution of resources.