This is a CTP of initiative: Participatory Budgeting Fortaleza (Brazil)
This CTP is an advance and at the same time an experiment with ICT tools to consult with the public about city planning. It is a regional / local adaptation of the way of doing, organizing the desires of the population, resulting in a new form of knowledge, which also includes the middle class, which does not attend PB face-to-face assemblies. It is, therefore, a reorientation and an advance in socio-technical relations within the local PB.
The Plano Plurianual – PPA - Multi-Annual Plan - MAP - in Brazil is regulated by the Brazilian Constitution as the duties of municipal, state and of federal governments. It is held every 4 years (period of one government between elections) and is carried out over the first year of the government, covering the first year of the next government. It is also approved by law, i.e., it is the elected candidate's responsibility to carry it out. The plan includes all actions and also its budget; in order to not to affect the guidelines that are contained in it, it is only possible to make investments in strategic programs referred to in the wording of PPA for the current period.
Thus when the new municipal government took over in 2013 they worked with the MAP legacy of the previous government which was created in 2012. By law the new mayor had the responsibility to follow this plan: "Our mayor always says, it is not working, just don´t do this, and that's pretty cool." That is, the mayor assumes the responsibility of disobeying the MAP.
This CTP concerns the creation in 2014 of the Digital Multi-Annual Plan (Digital MAP) designed to conduct regional formative meetings through preparatory meetings. It was the first time in Fortaleza that the population participated in drafting the MAP. Besides the preparatory meetings, which included several distinct segments of the population (PB in Brazil is known as a process that has the participation of the poor and in which the middle class does not participate) the internet was also used for voting.
The results of the internet vote were not significant. In total 1.385 people voted online, but according to the interviewee this was a paradigm shift in how the population participates in public administration.
The vote occurred by separate thematic axes "that were not chosen randomly, but are traditional in MPA methodology. And were not even transformed into actions. There was no time. It was the Participation Coordination that prepared the content. Only a few things were transformed. It utilized the same axes as the government plan.
For the interviewee it was a change of management and vision: "We could not catch and transform without questioning, we had to work with the axes of the government plan. It was a breakthrough moment".
The result of the Digital MPA interfered with strategic actions and strengthened the government team in the direction of these actions: " As the choice was by axes, it is very extensive, you prioritize the strategic axes, it's more of a guideline, it is a way to innovate how it is done, it has not 'rocked' yet, but there is a possibility to have more participation and at different levels (...) the population was, for the first time, exposed to the existence of the MPA, it was an initiative".
The central idea is participation, so the actors of co-production were the city hall and all its employees, including the mayor. The process involved all secretariats and also the entire population, in addition to social movements traditionally involved in participatory experiences. These actors were specifically involved in the vote, but more broadly in the preparatory meetings.
The implementation of the Digital MAP establishes the participation of the population in the discussions regarding "What is the model of participation that we want?” and "What Fortaleza do we want in the future?" It involved numerous ways of participation and transforming PB into these new ways and not limited to “only one form of participation”.
January 2013 - New mayor takes office - The new mayor took office, elected by the population of Fortaleza, after 8 years of managing the Workers Party.
April 2013 - Creation of a new strategic agenda - The mayor and his team built a strategic agenda that had a high emphasis on participatory planning. Included in this plan (which did not exist in the previous municipal government according to the mayor and his team) was the monitoring of the results: "What we are doing is participatory democracy and not participatory budgeting (...), in other words is it broader; the mayor himself dominates the agenda like no other, he picks up the agenda and says 'I do not agree with this indicator here, wasn’t it better before?' (Here suggesting a change). It makes a difference".
May 2013 – Creation of Digital Multi-Annual Plan - In order to increase the participation of the population and its various segments they created the Digital Multi-Annual Plan (implemented in 2014). However before electronic participation was established, there was a cycle of in-person meetings where all matters that were going to be voted on electronic voting machines were discussed with an emphasis on changing the local culture and directing it to planning. The vote is held on the Internet as determined by the elected mayor’s government plan. The plan prioritized: "mobility, health, education and security in a strategic vision". Digital participation was not significant, as only 1.385 people participated.
June - 2014 – Creation of Digital PB - In Brazil the PB is known to be a participatory process for the poor, in which the middle class does not participate in neither the meetings cycle nor votes. The creation of the digital PB is part of a larger strategy of participation from all sections of the population and participation not only in PB, but in all the municipal government’s major decisions. According to the interviewee, "before, in the assemblies there were 4 to 5 thousand people participating per PB cycle. The PB only saw an expansion in participation in the electronic voting. There were 18,335 votes”. For the electronic vote, electronic stations were placed in shopping malls throughout the city, on the waterfront and also in communities, in addition to on the internet.
June 2014 - Changes the architecture of participation - Officially it was no longer called PB, it was named "Ciclo de Planejamento Participativo (Participatory Planning Cycle) and the Coordenadoria de Paticipação (Coordination of Participation) was created, consolidating the ideas already discussed, that is, extending popular participation beyond the specific demands that were traditionally practiced since its implementation in 2005.
March 2015 – Meeting cycle begins - Throughout the meeting cycle held during this government, the interviewee states that "the city hall had a development project for the city and that the participants were ‘understanding’". That is, started to realize that the population was more involved with the new way of working that the interviewee calls a "building of social capital. The population was educated to participate and not only to ask for things. You can already see this happening. In the long-term this society will never be the same".
May 2015 – Popular participation in planning project - 2040 Fortaleza Project- Also through popular participation, Fortaleza starts (still ongoing) implementing strategic participatory planning through regular meetings with all segments of the population and also with digital participation.
According to the interviewee, there was no contestation. To the contrary, the idea was well praised winning over the media and giving visibility to the MAP that initially very few people were aware of; and giving visability to the PB itself, which in its digital participation (after digital participation in MAP) had a significant 18,335 votes. In addition, it gave visability to the strategic planning of the city.
In the City Hall itself the digital MAP won an internal award as an innovative project. This further encouraged the participation of employees who felt recognized.
In the beginning of the process there was the expectation that the vote in the Digital MPA was more expressive and also that people could vote on more detailed actions. But time did not allow that to happen this way "In the project, we wanted to go further. Go into more details in the different territories in the regions... we had serious problems. But I think it is not frustration, it is an opportunity for improvement. The digital issue has the great advantage of being spread in continuity of Fortaleza’s planning. The budget already incorporates the long-term project too. With information, we have already been able to mobilize the city and several different sections of the population who did not participate in PB (...). The average citizen gets more interested (...) we have given lectures at universities. There are universities debating the future of the city and this broadens participation in general".
Participation is on the public agenda and "what you learn is that with this tool... we have to know what there is and what has to be inserted into the public agenda, it is the way... The Fortaleza 2040, in the long-term, will have a lot of digital participation. With the internet you can have access to lots of information and you can participate in everything from planning to school. Digital inclusion has been included in the public agenda in the planning process. It has reached various sections of the population that did not reach before".
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