|
The Challenges of
Institutionalizing Participatory Budgeting: Experiences and
Lessons from Vitoria, Brazil
by Marta Zorzal e Silva and Mark S. Langevin
In recent years many have celebrated the Porto Alegre model for
participatory budgeting (PB), largely a consequence of the
Brazilian Workers Party “way of governing” that features direct
democratic institutions for policy and budget making. In Brazil,
the
participatory budgeting
process has grown from its initial establishment through Worker
Party municipal administrations in the late 1980s, including
those in Porto Alegre and Vitória (the capital of Espirito
Santo), to over 6,000 municipalities by 2001. While Porto
Alegre’s participatory budgeting model evolved through
successive Workers Party administrations from 1989 to 2004,
Vitória’s PB process was disrupted by turnover in the governing
party, which resulted in efforts by newly elected mayors, often
with different conceptualizations of PB, to institutionalize
their preferred models. Hence, Vitória’s experiences with PB are
more representative of what might happen in multiparty Brazil as
more jurisdictions adopt PB mechanisms for organizing direct
consultations with citizens.
The
Political Studies Laboratory at the Federal University of
Espirito Santo
(LEP-UFES) has conducted numerous research projects that track
the different experiences with PB in Vitória and the cities of
the greater metropolitan area, including Cariacica and Serra.
Among the many publications of LEP-UFES, Euzineia Carlos’ book,
Controle Social e Justiça Redistributiva no Orçamento
Participativo, and Marta Zorzal e Silva and Bajonas Teixeira
de Brito Junior’s edited volume, Participação Social na
Gestão Pública: Olhares Sobre as Experiências de Vitória-ES,
provide critical analyses of the uneven process of
institutionalizing PB structures and processes in greater
Vitória and its sustainability over time.
While much research and commentary has focused on who leads and
participates in PB processes, LEP-UFES has explored how
political parties and coalitions, mayors, appointed executive
branch policy leaders, and community leaders and associations
erect and then navigate the institutional frameworks through
which this form of direct democracy unfolds. While mayoral
leadership and social contestation may interact to produce
specific PB outcomes in distinct jurisdictions and junctures,
LEP-UFES identifies institutional development as a prime
indicator of vitality and sustainability of PB for those
citizens historically marginalized from the representative
institutions of public policy making. In particular, such
factors as territorial divisions, institutional support and
resources, and oversight of the PB process may play critical
roles in empowering citizens to effectively participate in such
forms of direct democracy.
The composition of the territorial bases (neighborhoods, entire
cities or greater metropolitan areas) for PB deliberations may
extend social control over marginalized communities or empower
them to confront the unequal distribution of public services and
resources.
LEP-UFES has observed and analyzed how variation in the
territorial bases that frame PB deliberations (neighborhood,
citywide, etc.) and their relationships to executive branch
power in Vitória since 1989 affect the extent to which the
public can truly participate in the process. During the first
Workers Party (PT) municipal administration of Mayor Vitor Buaiz
(1989-1992), the structure of the initial PB process reflected
an emphasis on the neighborhood, establishing a council with two
representatives from each participating neighborhood. This
council became an integral part of the structure of Buaiz’s
administration and was supported by the Secretariat of Social
Action and its Division of Popular Support.
Because of the novelty of this model, Buaiz’s Workers Party
administration focused on refining the process and providing
participants with trainings and “popular” education to increase
the effectiveness of members of the public in the PB process. In
1991 the administration further defined the process, developing
PB commissions to work on the budget by addressing various
issues, including outstanding policy challenges, infrastructure
needs, development of the seven regions composing the city, and
the average family income of each region.
The subsequent administration of Paulo Hartung (1993-1996) of
the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) continued to
embrace the PB process but added several distinct institutional
reforms. First, the Hartung administration changed the name of
the process to Popular Budgeting to better reflect the
new mayor’s vision of a participatory process that offered a
comprehensive approach to city planning, not just the tallying
of neighborhood and regional public works preferences. Hartung
transferred PB coordination to the Secretariat of Planning and
established a very refined process for measuring the quality of
life for each neighborhood and region. The administration
developed the Public Works and Actions Indicator that
judged projects, in part, according to whether they were of
(citywide) or concentrated (neighborhood/region) value,allowing
for a more integrated approach to decision making through PB.
Ironically, the next administration, that of Luiz Paulo
(1997-2005), continued the Brazilian Social Democratic Party’s
rule over the city but derailed the progress of PB as a form of
direct democracy. Although Luiz Paulo voiced his support for the
PB system, he quickly moved to reform it and eventually control
the deliberations. Paulo established seven regional
administrations for the city, each with its own mini-mayor who
would be responsible for the PB process, and organized PB
structures and deliberations so that the mini-mayors could
control and even impose their prerogatives upon the process. The
Paulo administration also abolished the system of the Public
Works and Actions Indicator in order to implement its own
planning strategy for the city, while making sure that each
Regional Forum (structures established to regulate regional PB
deliberations) arrived at compatible policy preferences.
The results were twofold. Through the two terms of Luiz Paulo
the PB process was discredited, and participation rates fell as
a consequence. Second, the city council moved to counter the
administration’s efforts by adopting the Italo Batan law,
enthusiastically supported by community groups, which sought to
institutionalize the PB process, protecting it against the
administrative fiat.
In 2005 Mayor João Coser of the Workers Party assumed the
administration of Vitória and worked to restore the vitality and
credibility of the PB system. In 2008 he was re-elected, in part
because of his work to revitalize the PB process and ensure that
open deliberations occur at every territorial base
(neighborhood, region, and city wide) in order to develop a
comprehensive budget plan that is truly participatory and
advances the aspirations of all citizens of the city. Moreover,
the new mayor appointed a Budget Council that is held
accountable for ensuring that the budget is carried out with
transparency and accountability to the PB process and
participants.
The level and nature of institutional support and resources can
empower or hinder the participation of marginalized communities.
With the exception of the Luiz Paulo municipal government,
Vitória’s mayors have attempted to support the PB process by
linking it to a key administrative secretariat that reinforces
the mayor’s support for the process with the resources needed to
finance and structure popular deliberations involving thousands
of citizens and dozens of community organizations. Under the
current administration of João Coser, the PB process is now
coordinated by the Strategic Administration Secretariat,
indicating the high level of support within the administration.
The administrations of Buaiz, Hartung, and Coser have all
invested substantial resources to guarantee that participants
are trained in PB and have access to the information and data
necessary for developing and presenting projects, defining
preferences, and holding the administration accountable to the
outcomes of the process.
The current Coser administration has deepened institutional
support and expanded resources for the PB process in Vitória.
Aside from placing the coordination of PB within a key executive
agency, creating a Budget Council responsible for ensuring
accountability, and guaranteeing deliberations at the local,
regional, and city wide levels, the government has created eight
policy issue areas for framing PB deliberations: Children,
Youth, Afro-Brazilians, Culture, Business, Women, Security, and
Solidarity Economics. According to PB participant Cosme Santos
de Jesus of the neighborhood Jaburu,
“the
construction of our neighborhood preschool was a necessity and
dream. Nobody believed that one day the construction would take
place, but today the project is almost completed. 400 children
will be served that previously had to go to the neighborhoods of
Ilha de Santa Maria, Consolação and Santa Helena.
Today, we have both a voice and vote, and this values each
citizen because they now believe that their participation is
meaningful.”
The monitoring of the PB process and measures or rules to hold
government jurisdictions accountable to both the process and its
outcomes are essential to the sustainability of this form of
direct democracy.
The lessons learned by Luiz Paulo’s administration are
clear—institutions matter and can either preclude meaningful
deliberations or generate them. Under Paulo, the PB process was
under the authority of the regional mini-mayors and controlled
so as to produce results that supported the mayor’s municipal
planning strategy. After several years, participants found less
meaning in the deliberations, ultimately turning to
representative democracy to protect the direct democracy
institutions of PB both through the passage of the Italo Batan
law and in their support for a mayoral candidate who embraced
the process. According to one of the recent PB participants,
Aureny Scheidegger Amaral of the neighborhood Estrelinha, “I
have really enjoyed this form of accounting for public monies
because for many years we did not have real Participatory
Budgeting.”
Participatory budgeting in Vitória did not evolve in a
progressive, linear fashion as is the case of Porto Alegre under
the Workers Party. Rather, successive mayors and parties offered
contrasting approaches to this form of direct democracy and
experimented with different institutional structures to
facilitate the process, or in the case of Mayor Luiz Paulo, to
subordinate it to his planning preferences. The lessons are
clear: participatory budgeting requires committed
administrations that provide the resources to support the
process and develop and preserve institutions that promote
participation, provide essential training and resources to
assist all participants, and structure a variety of forums to
discuss neighborhood, regional, citywide, and a set of diverse
planning issues that provide vitality to the process and sustain
it for all citizens and communities.
Bibliography
Carlos, Euzineia. Controle Social e Justiça Redistributiva no
Orçamento Participativo. Vitória/ES. EDUFES. 2007.
Zorzal e Silva, Marta and Bajonas Teixeira de Brito Junior.
Participação Social na Gestão Pública: Olhares Sobre as
Experiências de Vitória-ES. São Paulo. Annablume Editora.
2009.
Marta Zorzal e Silva, Ph.D. is Director of Political Studies
Laboratory and Professor of Political Science at the Federal
University of Espirito Santo.
Mark S. Langevin, Ph.D. is an Associate Researcher at the
Political Studies Laboratory/UFES and adjunct Associate
Professor of Government and Politics at the University of
Maryland-University College.
Assessing
Budget Democracy in Indonesia through the Local Budget
Index
by Yuna Farhan, Yeni Sucipto, Muhammad Maulana, and
Uchok Sky Khadafi, Indonesia Forum for Budget
Transparency (FITRA)
The budget advocacy movement in Indonesia began to
surface soon after reforms were implemented in the wake
of the downfall of the Soeharto regime in 1999. The
public began to realize that the budget is one of the
state’s most important policy instruments and requires
advocacy throughout the budget process to ensure
participation, transparency, and accountability.
Furthermore, advocacy is needed to help align budget
outcomes with the needs of the public. Democracy and
decentralization in Indonesia have shifted the focus of
public service management to the local level. This shift
is an effort to improve public service delivery and,
ultimately, the people’s overall welfare. Thus local
governance reform is essential for strengthening the
ability and will of local authorities to appropriate
budgets openly and with the interests of their
constituents in mind.
Ten years after the initiation of national budget
reforms, reforms at the local level have remained rather
stagnant. One of the major problems identified with
local budget processes is that there has been little
attempt to translate the concept of participatory
budgeting into practical and operational terms, making
it difficult for the government or members of the public
and civil society to monitor and evaluate these
local processes. In an effort to measure and address
this problem, the Indonesia Forum for Budget
Transparency (FITRA) supported by The Asia Foundation,
has formulated an instrument to measure the principles
of open and accountable budgeting: the Local Budget
Index (LBI).
The Local Budget Index is expected to make it easier for
the public to assess local governance in their own
districts, particularly with regard to the budget. From
the perspective of the government, the LBI has
simplified self-evaluation and improved its ability to
manage the budget by helping to identify weaknesses in
their budget processes and practices. Furthermore, the
LBI could be used as either an incentive or a punishment
to the districts, helping to strengthen the political
will to have open and accountable budgets.
The Local Budget Index measures principles of
participation, transparency, accountability, and gender
equality in the budget development process. Many
standards in the LBI instrument are based on the legal
framework of local budgeting in Indonesia and to
international standards of budget management found in
the International Monetary Fund’s Code of Good
Practices on Fiscal Transparency, as well as those
measured in the International Budget Partnership’s Open
Budget Index (OBI).
Indonesia was one of 85 countries included in the Open
Budget Survey 2008—a comprehensive analysis and survey
that evaluates whether central governments give the
public access to budget information and opportunities to
participate in the budget process. The Open Budget Index
2008 (OBI) is a comparative measure of the overall
commitment of the governments surveyed to budget
transparency based on a subset of the Survey’s 123
questions.
Indonesia scored 54 out of a possible 100 on the OBI
2008, which placed it among those countries that provide
some information to the public. The United
Kingdom scored the highest of all the surveyed countries
at 88 out of 100. The unit of analysis used for the
Survey was the national budget, known as the APBN in
Indonesia. Though the OBI was designed to measure budget
transparency and accountability at the national level,
the LBI was able to incorporate those components that
could be used in the local context, including elements
that measure the legal framework of local budgeting and
opportunities for public participation.
In formulating the LBI, it was difficult to identify
appropriate indicators for open budgeting, in part
because of interconnectedness of such principles as
transparency and accountability. Another challenge was
deciding how to weight the various indicators. Thus all
of the indicators and questions in the LBI were given
the same weight and value.
The Local Budget Index is currently being field tested
in 47 districts in Indonesia. The midterm review found
that assessors who had come from NGOs had difficulties
verifying answers to the questions used for the index.
To address this problem, these assessors carried out
in-depth interviews and held multi-stakeholder focus
group discussions to gain consensus on the appropriate
answers.
In addition to implementing the LBI, FITRA is carrying
out an analysis aimed at measuring the correlation
between levels of transparency, accountability, and
public participation in the budget process (as measured
by the LBI) and actual budget allocations. This budget
trend analysis also looks at the alignment between
planning and budgeting, the responsiveness of the budget
to issues of gender equity, the impact of revenue and
policy on budget allocation for the social sectors, and
budget efficiency.
For more information, contact Yuna Farhan at
sekretariat@seknasfitra.org.
Revealing Health Spending Research in
India and Kenya
The Transparency and Accountability Program (TAP), a
project of the Results for Development Institute (http://tap.resultsfordevelopment.org),
provided financial and technical support for Civil
Society Organizations (CSOs) to conduct research and
related advocacy on social sector public spending. Here,
we present summaries of the findings of two projects on
health spending. The first one was conducted by the
Institute of Policy Analysis and Research
(IPAR) in Kenya. The second one was conducted by the
Indo-Dutch Project Management Society
(IDPMS) in India.
The
Institute of Policy Analysis and Research
(IPAR), an NGO in Kenya whose aim is to develop,
implement, and evaluate constructive public policy
ideas, was compelled to research the recent decline of
Kenyan health and public health care. Even though public
spending on health care has been rising recently, there
has been no corresponding increase in health outcomes.
Significant increases in Kenya’s health budget, from 16
billion Kenyan schillings (Ksh) in 2003-2004 to 27
billion Ksh in 2006-2007 (which represents 7.92 percent
of total government expenditures and two percent of GDP
for that year) have coincided with decreases in a number
of health indicators, such as infant mortality and life
expectancy. Between 50-54 percent of health expenditures
between 2002 and 2007 went to public health care
workers’ salaries, which are significantly lower than
those of private sector health workers, especially for
doctors and pharmacists.
Budget analysis showing that a significant portion of
health expenditures was being allocated to salaries,
coupled with the mention in the 2005-2020 National
Health Sector Strategic Plan that personnel management
needs to be more efficient, led IPAR to conduct a study
of public health care facilities in the Machakos
district of Kenya to determine the extent and causes of
health care provider absenteeism. IPAR hypothesized that
absenteeism was a problem contributing to a leakage of
public funds. Upon visiting 40 health facilities
unannounced, researchers found an average absenteeism
rate of 25 percent. According to IPAR’s estimate,
employee absenteeism costs the district of Machakos
6,659,832 Ksh (approx. US$107,000) per month.
[1]
Estimates show that over the course of a
year, the accumulated cost, over $1 million, would be
enough to build a fully equipped mid-level health care
facility. In response to its findings on the causes and
fiscal implications of absenteeism, IPAR has offered a
number of policy recommendations to begin to remedy the
situation, including decentralizing the control of
hiring and firing to the local level so management can
better assess job performance in relation to employment
decisions; monitoring absenteeism more closely; and
disciplining frequently absent workers.
The second budget analysis project was conducted by the
Indo-Dutch Project Management Society
(IDPMS), which is dedicated to fostering the values of
economic and social justice and empowering the rural
poor in India. Recently IDPMS conducted a study of
public health service delivery in the State of
Karnataka, India, which has a vast rural poor
population. The study aimed to assess the quality and
accessibility of Public Health Centers (PHCs) in two
districts of Karnataka, Bellary and Chamaraja Nagar, by
looking at the budget flows and the organizational
structure of local PHCs. The study also examines
Karnataka’s three-tiered governance system that resulted
from the devolution of financial resources and
administrative powers to local government—the Zilla
Panchayat (ZP) at the district level, the Taluk
Panchayat (TP) at the taluk level (a taluk is a
subdivision of a district), and the Gramma Panchayat
(GP) at the village level. These Panchayat Raj
institutions (PRIs) were created to improve the quality
of life for all Indians by promoting more accessible
feedback mechanisms for locals to express their needs
and formulate policies around them. Assessing public
healthcare service delivery and the success of these
PRIs requires an understanding of the budget processes
of these government institutions.
The Zilla Panchayat is responsible for healthcare
purchases for the lower level PRIs. All lower level
public health sector employees report to the District
Health and Family Welfare Officer, who reports to the
CEO of the ZP. After the state makes allocations in the
annual budget enacted by the legislature, a “Link
Document” is then drafted, which further allocates funds
for all activities of all departments under
administrative control of the ZP. While the ZP is the
repository of all funds that flow from the State to the
lower levels, PHCs are able to provide some input on the
purchase of pharmaceuticals. The budget for
pharmaceuticals is divided into two components, with 60
percent going to centralized purchases of standard drugs
for the entire system, while the remaining 40 percent
goes to purchase pharmaceuticals specific to local PHCs’
needs.
IDPMS used Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys (PETS),
Quantitative Service Delivery Surveys (QSDS),
interviews, questionnaires, and some legal and economic
data in their analysis. The questions to PHC personnel
focused on duties, availability of pharmaceuticals,
availability and functioning of equipment, and life
amenities provided by the PHC and Health and Family
Welfare Department. For patients, the questions focused
on their perception of and preferences for healthcare
provision, the adequacy of public health facilities,
doctor availability, waiting time, and costs. Several
understaffing and underfunding problems were identified,
as well as irregularities in obtaining and distributing
pharmaceuticals at the PHCs. (Although the budget
processes for pharmaceutical purchases allows for
local-level feedback, PHCs and Gramma governments do not
directly receive any funds for purchases.)
All of these factors make people opt for private
healthcare, even when they cannot afford it.
IDPMS’s preliminary findings document challenges on both
the demand and supply sides of public healthcare service
delivery in Bellary and Chamaraja Nagar. Supply-side
problems discovered generally fall into one of three
categories: 1) availability of qualified medical
personnel in the PHC; 2) availability of pharmaceuticals
and other medical supplies; and 3) a facility’s
infrastructure.
The IDPMS study identifies four key policy actions
needed to address the underlying problems of the public
healthcare system in the districts of Bellary and
Chamaraja Nagar: 1) increase the allocation to health
and family welfare to two percent of the Net State
Domestic product; 2) capture and classify all relevant
data on budget flows, jurisdiction, and management of
the procurement process at all levels and periodically
present them to the public in accessible formats; 3)
widely disseminate and increase the accessibility
information on service delivery and budget needs,
thereby increasing transparency and accountability at
the local level; and 4) aggressively promote medical
education to ensure a greater supply of medical
professionals that will fulfill the demands of the
system.
|
