The Participatory Budgeting Project is a non-profit organization that supports participatory budgeting in North America and hosts an international resource site.
Update from Porto Alegre
Sergio Baierle, from the NGO CIDADE, just published a critical report
on the status of Porto Alegre's PB. See the summary below, or the full
report at:
http://www.ongcidade.org/site/php/noticias/noticias.php?area=artigos&completa&id_noticia=1021
Whittling down the Potential of Participatory Budgeting?
by Sérgio Baierle
2008-08-19
“PB is still alive!”, The government repeatedly and publicly claims, as
if it is trying to convince itself. There are doubts about the validity
of its statement, the most serious of which have been pointed out by
participatory budgeting council members themselves. How can one defend
the idea that PB still exists, they say, if 1) The decisions made by
people do not translate into more resources being allocated in the
Investment Plan?; 2) The neighborhoods that haven’t prioritized certain
themes receive more of those resources than those that prioritize
them?; and 3) When it comes to implementation, the city government
cherry-picks initiatives that suit its needs without paying any
attention to the priority scales that are voted on in each neighborhood
and without setting up collective management teams to preside over the
public works?
Brazilian Participatory Budgeting Network
The Brazilian PB Network has a nice new website (http://www.pbh.gov.br/redebrasileiraop), including some content in English, such as this interview with a PB consultant:
http://www.pbh.gov.br/redebrasileiraop/newsletter/ing/ing_13.htm
Participatory Budgeting on Facebook
For those of you on Facebook, there's now a participatory budgeting group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=22229870351
There are around 300 members so far!
National PB Conference in UK
Coming up soon, for those interested in the rapidly increasing popularity of PB in the United Kingdom:
Making Spending Count?
A national conference on Participatory Budgeting
and its role in Community Empowerment. Organised and hosted by the
Participatory Budgeting Unit and supported by the Department for
Communities and Local Government. Keynote speaker: Rt. Hon. Hazel
Blears MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.
Date: Monday 15th September 2008
Venue: Midland Hotel, Manchester
More info:
http://www.participatorybudgeting.org.uk/events/national-participatory-budgeting-conference
