Participatory Budgeting (PB) is a participatory process in which the expertise of citizens is incorporated into the distribution of public funds.
The current pandemic is shaping public life and especially affects spaces where citizens interact with each other and take part in democratic processes. The challenges posed by the virus vary from region to region. Sometimes it seems to diminish the political and social participation of citizens, other times it seems to activate participation – but not always in the right direction…
Nevertheless, committed initiatives have developed creative approaches to continue to enable citizen's participation in the last couple of months. Throughout the pb-community, important experiences have been made, regarding online events and digital solutions for participation. One major realisation: Those tools could also be useful in the (post-)pandemic future.
Five years ago, Nelson Dias, publisher of World Atlas of Participatory Budgeting, labeled Participatory Budgeting as a "Hope for Democracy".
“The World Atlas of Participatory Budgeting represents the widest compilation of data, to date, on the situation of these processes on the planet. This is the result of collaborative work and the enormous generosity of more than 70 authors, who voluntarily made themselves available to collect and analyze information that would enable to understand the reality of these initiatives in very diverse quadrants. One of the main motivations of this initiative is to assess the disseminator outreach of Participatory Budgeting and to understand the main trends, over the last 30 years, ensuring a first-level analysis on the data of each country, and in a second moment, on the different continents.” – so the editors of the first edition of the World Atlas. The next edition will be published 2020 and focuses inter alia the consequences of the Covid-19-pandemic for PB.
How is the situation worldwide today? Dr. Stephanie Hanke speaks with Nelson Dias about new insights of a “Corona”-edition of the World Atlas, about future trends and prognosis. How does PB work in the Corona pandemic? Are there particularly striking examples of how the pandemic is being handled in terms of its impact on citizens' paticipation? What is the experience of the local authorities, how participation could be increased? Or does participation only increase inequality?
The livestream was held on 24.09.2020 at 6pm (CET) - good information by reviewing the insights of our experts!