This is a CTP of initiative: Participatory Budgeting Porto Alegre (Brazil)
This CTP consists of the development of the dialog between the communities’ representatives within the Participatory Budgeting Council. According to the interviewee, this is something that has been happening for four years now: “I do not think that there was a specific moment of change, they began to notice the need to stick together in order to talk to the government and also to get things done in their communities”.
The interviewee points it as a motivation for people: “This is important to motivate people into participating in the assemblies and in the whole PB process. If people do not see things getting done around them, they get unmotivated and the community loses representativeness in PB. So it is important for the representatives to get together with others representative and align votes to get more things done in their communities”. In the PB, now, everything depends on the communities’ leaders: "They have some groups between them. The strongest get a lot of things done in their community, and the ones that have the least power get aligned with them so they can receive something. It is not a good thing though, but now the little ones are getting together to confront this…".
There are concerns about manipulation: "They are talking about it now in the PB’s Council (...) A good thing is happening in the thematic councils. In these meetings they have to think about the whole city, so they think collectively and that is a good thing for the representatives because they start acknowledging that it is important to be collective; also it is good for the city and its citizens… The thematic council is a great thing because it is different to the regional assemblies, whose only concern is the region’s demands. The thematic council has to think about the whole city. That is a logic we are trying to bring to the PB’s council"
The co-producers are the city hall (with its new organization) and the PB councilors.
The interviewee sees this point as an organic transformation because it is a bottom-up initiative. Although the government always encourages the dialog and the alignment of the communities and its representatives, it is not a government initiative. The councilors realized that it was the best way to move forward with the process and began this collective movement., as stated: “People need to start thinking about everything and not only their own belly button. If they are too individualistic, thinking only about their own communities, they will probably not get anything because they need votes from others councilors to approve their priority demands in the PB’s council. It is a relationship-based process”.
2010 - There are not any specific events that stimulated this CTP. The interviewee recognizes that this union between representatives is seen in the councils but also in the forums. He acknowledges that within the regional forums the dialog began intensively because of specific needs. There are small new associations in every region and they do not have lots of delegates in the forums, so they need to align themselves in order to prioritize their demands. That could have helped to spread this logic towards other levels of the PB.
The only contestation that is clear for the interviewee, considers the movement against the manipulation of dialog that sometimes happens when some representatives are much stronger (more powerful) than others. But in general, he considers that the organic change of deepening the dialog has been received without big concerns.
This was not a definite point; it was an organic change that happened, so it was not anticipated by anyone. There was an incentive from the government, they wanted the representatives to have more dialog and be cohesive in their demands and strategies, but it wasn’t planned. The dialog process had already occurred, but now that it is stronger it is providing benefits that before were only provided to a concentrated few.
“This CTP is all about social learning”. The interviewee considers that the main thing about this CTP is the learning it promotes to the communities representatives and to the government. According to him, the collective thinking that the deeper dialog promotes is a gain to the community and to those involved. The representatives learn more about the needs of their region by talking to those who are not so close to them and also realize the realities of the other regions as they need to exchange experiences and talk about different themes and demands. For the government it is an interesting process because they also have to listen more and be empathetic to the representatives. The interviewee is responsible for two thematic councils and tells me that it is a great way of learning for him to mediate the dialog between the representatives and explore different kinds of methods to democratically arrange the process in the councils. “It will always be challenging to deal with different people. Although everybody knows that it is important to listen, nobody practices it, so it is a constant exercise, especially if you consider that each year we have different people as councilors and representatives”
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