On the 1st of June, the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) in the UK published online the paper “Empowering communities to influence local decision making: A systematic review of the evidence”. In this paper, Prof. Lawrence Pratchett and his colleagues provide evidence-based lessons on six empowerment mechanisms: 1) asset transfer 2) citizen governanceRead… Read more »
This rather short list that I have compiled provides an idea of the variety of online initiatives type budget simulators / games. Even though it is not Participatory Budgeting (PB) this might be useful to some interested in the use of ICTs in PB processes. If you know of other similar initiatives please let meRead… Read more »
A while ago I read Democracy and Knowledge: Innovation and Learning in Classical Athens by Josiah Ober, and since then I have been thinking about what it contributes to the ongoing debates about collaboration in the public sector, participatory democracy and even WEB 2.0. At the risk of being unfair to the monumentality of Ober’sRead… Read more »
41 U.S. states currently face budget gaps, and judging by the forecasts of even the most optimistic specialists, such a situation is far from being substantially changed in the near future. In this context, it is particularly interesting to highlight the few ICT mediated initiatives that are starting to take place at the subnational (state)Read… Read more »
Following a series of posts about Participatory Budgeting (PB), I would like to describe an experiment in the coordination of which I had the pleasure to participate, which took place in the framework of the e-AGORA project (co-financed by the European Commission) in the city of Ipatinga, Brazil. Prior to 2001, community leaders of theRead… Read more »
The International Budget Partnership released today the Open Budget Index (OBI). The UK scores first on the provision of budget information to its public, followed by South Africa, France, New Zealand and the United States. On the other hand, 80% of the surveyed governments fail to provide sufficient information on the budget to its public.Read… Read more »
This post is based on a paper of mine published by the Electronic Democracy Centre (Zurich University) about the experience of the e-Participatory Budgeting of the city of Belo Horizonte. In part 1 of this post I use extracts from a short article by Dan Jellinek (Headstar) and myself that aimed to present a summaryRead… Read more »
(note: originally posted at theConnectedRepublic.org) Participatory Budgeting (PB) can be broadly defined as the participation of citizens in the decision-making process of budget allocation and monitoring public spending. Participation may take various forms, from effective decision-making power in the allocation of resources to more modest initiatives that confer voice during the development of the budget.Read… Read more »