References

Citizen Participation in Budgeting: Prospects for Developing Countries 65

approach”(Andrews 2004,p.27).“There is a distinct lack ofany kind of meaningful participation in the ongoing development or implementation ofPARPA [the Action Plan for the Reduction ofAbsolute Poverty] or in the monitoring and evaluation ofthe strategy”(p.29).

A similar pattern is evident in Honduras.“The major obstacle for civil society participation in the PRSP process is that the central government will not enter into a dialogue with NGOs,”writes Forner (2002,p.117).“Without the direct input from the municipalities and localities,governments lack the capacity to develop a realistic poverty-reduction plan,and their current PRSPs reflect the absence ofinput.”An analysis ofPRSP participation in Bolivia,Malawi,and Rwanda concludes that the process was rushed,poorly organized,and dominated by elite groups (Painter 2002).

These reviews suggest that participation has fallen well short ofits goals.Participation appears relatively narrow,excluding large sections of society based on geography or income.It also appears to be consultative at best,characterized by rushed processes that allow little prospect for meaningful dialogue.

Participation in Budgeting There is no agreement on what participatory budgeting means or how to go about it:the study and dissemination ofthe idea ofparticipatory budgeting are following practice rather than the other way around.In developing countries around the world,innovative ways are being found to increase public involvement in the budgeting process.As these examples and others become better known,their influence can be expected to grow.

Participatory budgeting aims to infuse the values ofcitizen involvement into the most basic and frequently the most formal procedure of governance—the distribution ofresources through the budgeting process. Citizen involvement can foster accountability,transparency,and more effective distribution ofresources.Proponents ofparticipatory budgeting also see it as a way ofchallenging the exclusion ofnonelite groups from the process.Wampler (2000,p.1) describes the ambitious and multiple goals ofparticipatory budgeting:

These programs are designed to incorporate citizens into the policy-making process,spur administrative reform,and distribute public resources to lowincome neighborhoods.Social and political exclusion is challenged,as lowincome and traditionally excluded political actors are given the opportunity to make policy decisions.Governments and citizens initiate these programs to

66 Donald P. Moynihan

promote public learning and active citizenship,achieve social justice through improved policies and resources allocation,and reform the administrative apparatus.

This section examines the potential for participation at each ofthe four different stages ofthe budget process:budget preparation and budget approval (or resource allocation),budget execution,and audit and performance evaluation.The approach provides lessons from a series ofcase studies on how participation might be organized at each stage ofthe budget process.

Participation in resource allocation The preparation and approval stages ofthe budget process are traditionally bottom up in nature,driven by agencies with some basic guidance on budget constraints and priorities from elected officials.Agencies tend to budget based on previous allocations.This maintains rigidity in the distribution ofresources.Agencies usually submit their proposed budget to a central budget office,which amends the budget before forwarding it to the legislature.Once the budget reaches the legislature,the budget approval process begins.It is still possible for participation to occur at this stage,but the basic procedures ofapproval are centralized in legislative committees.The modes ofparticipation that can have an effect at this stage (committee hearings,lobbying ofmembers,providing analysis of the executive budget proposal) do not lend themselves to direct citizen involvement.In political systems in which the executive branch is dominant, it is unlikely that the legislature will radically change the proposed budget. For these reasons there is greater opportunity for the active participation ofcitizens during the budget preparation stage than during the budget approval stage.

participatory budgeting in porto alegre. An example ofparticipation in setting priorities and proposing allocations can be seen in the participatory budgeting processes in more than 100 municipalities in Brazil.The prototype is Porto Alegre,the capital ofthe Brazilian state Rio Grande do Sul,which began using participatory budgeting in 1989.Before the introduction ofparticipatory budgeting,the city government was dominated by a clientelistic approach,in which public resources were used to maintain a political machine (Fung and Wright 2001).

A key event leading to the use ofparticipatory budgeting was the election ofthe Worker’s Party candidate as mayor.The party had campaigned on the issue ofdemocratic participation and redistribution ofpublic spending