This is a CTP of initiative: Participatory Budgeting Porto Alegre (Brazil)
This CTP consists of a contextual change. The PB Porto Alegre emerged in the late 80s as a proposal made by the newly elected mayor, answering popular demands: “For the PB to be made possible, we had to consider the context in which we were living. We were in a post-dictatorship period and there was an expectation for social and political changes. The PB in Porto Alegre was only possible because we had elected a party that had a leftist discourse and aimed to change, among other things, the way the municipal budget was managed”.
According to the interviewee, the election of 1989 had this transformative power because of the new logic they imposed on the city (a more social logic) and especially because it happened right after a very particular time that had not allowed for much popular participation (the dictatorship), so the citizens, especially popular movements, had high expectations and were willing to join in the process of the participatory budgeting: “There were strong social movements during this period”.
The coalition that assumed the local government in Porto Alegre was leftist and they were engaged in changing public policies however the participatory budgeting system was not as clear as it may have seemed. The population was aiming to make changes and they had a lot of demands for the government.
Building up the participatory budget was less of a linear and more of an experimental process: “Neither the population nor the government had a clear idea of what would work, so everybody was inconstant arrangement”.
Thus, the co-producers of these CTPs were the municipal government itself, the social movements and the population in general, with special participation of the poorest population, who had demands of improvement in the regions that they inhabited.
The context of the political crisis during the dictatorship and the economic struggles that the country was going through were stimulators for the government to rethink its posture and way of management. At the same time, the population was expecting democratic participation following the end to the dictatorship.
1986 – The first municipal elections were held after the military dictatorship - PDT (Partido Democra?tico Trabalhista – Democratic Workers Party) won the election. It was the beginning of a discussion concerning public budgeting. Government and UAMPA (Union of Porto Alegre Neighborhood Associations) started debating and operating people ?s councils in Porto Alegre.
1986 – The People’s Councils were formed Citizens began to take part in public decisions -making in a consulting role.
1988 – Approved the Supplementary Law 195/88 - This Law created the “People's Participation in Municipal Government System and Measures”. This was the beginning of the institutionalization of popular participation.
1988 – NGO Cidade was established - This NGO was an important actor that participated in the council’s discussions. Later on it enabled leaders to participate in the PB process and monitored the PB in Porto Alegre.
1989 - Participatory Budgeting was implemented - 403 people and 230 entities participated in regional conventions to propose new ideas to the government. Representatives were elected to follow-up the budgeting process.
1990 – Organic Municipal Law was approved - An Office (Planning Office) was created to be responsible for the budgeting planning of Porto Alegre.
1990 – Created the Municipal Council of Government Plan and Budget - The creation of this Council promoted wider engagement of citizens in the participation process.
The participatory budgeting itself, as a way of managing the municipal budget, is a contestation towards the system. Even though the party that took over the city hall was a leftist one and had interest in changing the political logic, some people from within the party were not supportive regarding the participatory budgeting.
The people responsible for organizing the city’s budget at that time were the “Planning Office” and they had a close relationship with the real estate people in the city, who were hoping for large investments in the sector, a plan that would not be taken forward if the idea of participatory budgeting were to happen.
There was a common understanding that the need for city expansion was related to huge investments in the real state market, a traditional logic that was confronted by the idea of participatory budgeting.
Other than that, there were other parties who were against this process and that had power in the municipal chamber. They received support from the population’s upper classes, who were also confronting the established government because they feared that the poorer population would be prioritized and that their needs would be neglected as part of this new logic.
Considering the neighborhood associations, there were some who did not want to support or participate in the participatory budgeting process. According to the interviewee, there were some representatives in those associations that had political power and proximity to the decision-making people in the city hall. “They (the representatives) thought that this new system would make them lose representativeness in the community and their power within the city hall.
According to the interviewee, when the leftist party was elected there was an expectation of change: “People had a huge expectation of change. Among those who supported the party there was an optimistic vision; there were also those who did not support the party but were expecting changes, but in a negative sense”.
The PB was not yet a government proposal. The interviewee recognized that the experience with the Conselhos Populares (Popular Councils) had helped the population and the government to deal with the insecurity of starting something as new as participatory budgeting: “In the previous term of office, the city hall established the Popular Councils, which were linked to the secretaries and had huge government participation, however they were not so popular after all. When the leftist coalition assumed control in 1990, they wanted these popular councils to be independent from the government … then the popular council began to be led by organized civil associations and it opened the path for the PB to emerge”.
The process of change had the active participation of the municipal government, but also of the population: “It was not only the government’s view of change; there was also involvement from the population in the process of change”.
The interviewee recognizes the two sides to this discussion. The first side being that “they (the population) have learned to organize themselves from rules constructed collectively. They also learned to respect and to make the government honor those rules”.
This was a huge step in learning according to the interviewee, because after the first years of chaotic arrangement, when the system became more organized in 1992 and 1993, they created rules that shaped the entire PB process: “They created a score system that was very objective, especially regarding the main demands. Then people acknowledged the importance of the demands because of the punctuation and it made it clear to people where they should invest the city’s money. The rules were built with the people, so they understood everything. But it was an ongoing process; it was not an immediate learning”.
The second main learning, according to the interviewee, was the learnt behavior that this CTP provoked. In addition to building up the rules for the process to occur, the people also needed to understand and adapt their behavior to be able to participate in the process: “In order to participate in the process, people needed to behave well during the assemblies, for example. They needed to wait for their turn to speak, they needed to request permission to speak, to organize their speech. Before this, they did not have any kind of experience in a truly participatory process. The neighborhood associations were involved in a top-down decision-making process; the president used to be the owner of the association and decided everything".
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