Participatory budgeting is not the same as a personal budget. Instead, it is a process where the municipalities of a certain area and organized neighbors agree and jointly decide the priority of public resources. It is a way to strengthen the relationship with the neighborhood, fostering their participation in public management and in making decisions about investment priorities that contribute to district development. Many cities will often inquire from citizens if they want to help define the community issues that need some of the city budgets as a means of providing a solution. That is where you would come in.

Participatory Budgeting: How To Participate

In the initial phase, it is important to choose the best type of participatory budget and also how you will engage as a citizen. Your approach will determine the outcome. The primary goal should be decided right away. This should include distribution of funds, educating other citizens, and interacting with them about all the details involved. You should also determine your project ideas and what you will be able to contribute. Once the project has been launched, you will have enough information to vote wisely.

Improvement Projects

How can you adequately participate in the consultation on participatory budgeting?

You can present improvement projects in the neighborhood or town where you reside and/or have a link of belonging, being able to manifest said link in the neighborhood, cities, and towns, in addition to your city of residence. For example, you could present projects in the neighborhood where you work, where you study, where you have your business, and of course where you live. You can participate in the citizen assemblies to define the projects of each neighborhood or town. You can also issue your opinion on the days the citizen consultation is held.

Democracy Mechanism

One way in which citizen participation is expressed is through the implementation of direct democracy mechanisms. The intention of these exercises is to involve society in decision-making so that it can decide on the actions that its authorities have taken or will take. The call to carry out these exercises at the national level corresponds to the Executive and Legislative powers, while at the subnational level, it can be made by governors and Congresses. In some countries, citizens can also promote them, and although the citizens are the main actors with convening power, political parties generally also take a proactive role in promoting them.

So far, the most widely used mechanism in several countries has been popular consultation. Its function consists of asking the population about an issue of public interest so that it expresses its acceptance or rejection of the proposal of its representatives. However, they have to take into account that just as there are relevant issues that affect an entire country or neighborhood and have national scope, there are also problems that are reduced and limited to very focused territories. The direct democracy mechanisms that have been used are basically three:

• Consultation

• Popular initiative and

• Revocation of the mandate

Consultation

The Public Debate

In the case of Consultation, two subtypes can be distinguished. First is the one that consists of the government entity asking citizens about projects or public policies that have not yet come into force, or about measures that have already been implemented and have generated a public debate. You can get involved with the public debate so you can have a voice for others in your neighborhood. It is a popular consultation on political matters of great importance and also serves for citizens to decide “between accepting or rejecting a proposal that concerns sovereignty.” A characteristic of this is that the result is not binding, that is, citizens do not have the last word; instead, they can only issue an opinion.

The Referendum

The second subtype of consultation is the referendum, which consists of submitting laws or administrative acts to the direct popular vote for their ratification. This instrument will give you and other citizens the power to approve constitutional changes related to the budget, and also implies that people can participate in the legislative process through direct consultation. The referendum does have a binding character and is not purely consultative, which means that it is necessary for the result to be complied with by the governments, regardless of whether they agree with the decision issued by you and the other participating citizens. With the referendum, you would acquire the power to decide, which can finally be translated into citizen empowerment, since it submits issues of national or sub-national interest to the benefit of the people.

The Decision Making Power

Given that with the referendum, the decision-making power is transferred from the governments to the citizens; its implementation is usually carefully observed by citizens like yourself and those who promote it. In the vast majority of cases, budget implementation has been controlled by the governments themselves, who decide on the modalities, define the issues, and the date of their application. They also formulate the question and decide the necessary percentage of citizen and legislative votes required for its approval. When this happens, every phase of the process can be manipulated.

Government Control

One way to counteract the governments' control over the budget consultations is when they are implemented from below, that is, through a popular petition from citizens. In these cases, as a citizen, you can request that some laws that have already been enacted or that are intended to be sanctioned are submitted to a consultation. In some countries, faced with certain measures that are going to become law, or when the constitution is going to be modified, the application of a referendum is mandatory.

Popular Initiative

In the case of popular initiative, the instrument confers on citizens the power to propose a bill or reform initiative before the legislative power. This exercise encourages that the prerogative does not fall exclusively on the executive or legislative power, which implies that the popular representatives are not the only actors who have the competence to propose legislative initiatives. As a citizen, you can petition to force certain measures not included in the legislative agenda to be submitted to the direct approval of the electorate. In the event that the measure is approved in a referendum, it will have the force of law, even if the government opposes it. Citizens have more power than they are aware of.

The Mandate

Then, there is the revocation of the mandate. This modality allows you and other citizens to decide on the continuity or removal of an elected representative before the formal end of their term of government. In the world, this exercise has been implemented basically at the local level and with much less frequency at the national level. The interruption of the mandate that this instrument allows can reach both heads of the government and legislators, by leaving without effect their power to continue exercising the position.

As anticipated before, it is important to note that all these direct democracy mechanisms not only promote participation in things related to politics but can also empower citizens, since, through them, they acquire joint responsibility in making budgetary and other public decisions once they decide to have a voice in the debate and in the definition of policies. Likewise, these mechanisms allow you to intervene in the promotion of legislative initiatives, introduce issues on the governments' agenda and, also, grant or deny a vote of confidence to its popular representatives.

The Policies

The application of the participatory budget has allowed citizens to select metropolitan policies that will be addressed by their authorities in the short term. Although the opinion of the inhabitants of the territorial demarcations is already considered, it cannot yet be affirmed that this type of exercise promotes greater political participation, nor that it has allowed exercising authentic social control over a part of the resources managed by the municipalities. It is possible to consider that this mechanism has contributed to greater citizen empowerment. In any case, the instrument allows the inhabitants to propose a reduced number of items that are introduced in the agenda of the delegation heads.

Conclusion

When it comes to participatory budgeting, the opinion of the citizens is expressed through a consultation, and once they choose the topics, their governments allocate a part of the budget they receive to the attention of the items that have prioritized the majority of the participants. Similarly, under the participatory budget, citizens can also propose their own projects to be considered in the consultations. If the inhabitants of the territorial demarcations or municipalities make use of these prerogatives, they can influence, although in a very tangential way, in the definition of the public problems that must be managed.

These consultations have been implemented basically at the local level. If you want to know more about how to monitor your own monthly budget, go to the Goalry Platform online and enter the Budgetry store. You will be met with a host of information you can use on the topic of budgeting.