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The Africa-Latin America Mutual Action Learning Initiative On Participatory Budgeting
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PARTICIPANTS' GUIDELINESBackground Since its introduction in Brazil, Participatory Budgeting (PB) has been one of the most recognized innovations from developing countries in promoting citizen demand for good governance. It has since been embraced by many other countries in Latin America, North America, Europe, Asia, and more recently Africa. Underlying this success is the recognition that PB is an effective policy instrument for responsive governance, offering a platform for citizens to learn about public expenditure management, voice their preferences in budget planning, scrutinize procurement and monitor the delivery of services and infrastructure. While participatory budgeting is evolving rapidly throughout these regions in multiple forms and shapes, there is a growing recognition of the need to create spaces where practitioners can share their innovations and lessons to overcome common challenges more effectively. Taking this into consideration, and building upon successful peer-to-peer learning programs, the key development partners of the Africa Regional Seminar on Participatory Budgeting will launch during the event a pilot Mutual Learning Initiative that is intended to promote peer-to-peer learning and cooperation among Africa and Latin American practitioners. The initiative will support demand-driven projects which can contribute to direct cooperation and exchange between Africa and Latin America on the different aspects of participatory budgeting, such as policy reforms, budget transparency and fiscal literacy, citizens' voice in revenue and expenditure planning, as well as civil society oversight of public expenditure management, and delivery of infrastructure and services. The initiative, therefore, will seek to support the development of a peer-to-peer learning community and to provide the partners with the opportunity to learn from each others' successes, near misses and outright failures. The initiative will be launched during the Durban Seminar, where the delegates will have the opportunity to submit preliminary proposals for joint projects on what and how they would like to learning from other peers in Africa and Latin America. The best proposals will be asked to prepare full project proposals for the different funding windows. Key Objectives The overarching objective of the Mutual Learning Initiative is to strengthen direct exchange and cooperation between Latin America and the African Continent practitioners on the subject of Participatory Budgeting. By creating and space through which PB practitioners in Latin America and the African Continent can exchange experiences and learn together, this initiative expect to:
Principles and Approach The Africa-Latin America Mutual Learning Initiative on Participatory Budgeting is based on the core principle of demand-driven initiatives to promote direct collaboration and learning from peers. In other words, the participating institutions will be in the driver's sit to identify what they would like to learn, how they would like to learn, from whom they would like to learn, and what lessons they can share with their peers. The answers for these questions will set the parameters for the participants to prepare preliminary proposals for mutual learning. Taking this principles into considerations, the seminar organizers defined an agenda during the event to allow the participants from the African Continent to get to know each other, learn about each others interests and about the kind of progress that is being made on issues of participatory budgeting, and also exchange with their Latin American counterparts about their experience with participatory budgeting. During the course of the Seminar participants from the African continent were invited to partner with each other to form clusters, and each cluster was subsequently paired up with one or more Latin American institutions to develop a preliminary work plan proposal on a peer-to-peer mutual action learning activities. Funding Window General Window Small grants of up to $20,000 are available to practitioners from Africa working on general aspects of participatory budgeting. These grants will support peer-to-peer learning on issues such as enhancing transparency, evaluating quality of public expenditures, and delivery of infrastructure and services, improving budget oversight and implementing independent budget oversight, increasing citizen participation and citizen voice in budgeting, and improving institutional capacity of organizations working on participatory budgeting. Examples of types of projects that this grant window will support include: building local government capacity to develop a strategic plan for participatory budgeting, develop tools and mechanisms to assess what issues within participatory budgeting require the most attention for a specific municipality, and designing municipal finance management systems. Communication & Participatory Budgeting Small grants of up to $20,000 are available to CSO/NGO practitioners from Africa working on communication and participatory budgeting. These grants will support peer-to-peer learning in the design and use of communication activities to strengthen participatory budgeting and enhance budget transparency at the local level. Examples of the types of projects this grant window would support include awareness-raising and budget literacy projects, building local government communication capacity around budgeting process; and developing effective public engagement strategies. This window is sponsored by the Communication for Governance & Accountability Program, Development Communication Division, World Bank. The Communication for Governance & Accountability Program (CommGAP) seeks to promote good and accountable governance through the use of innovative communication approaches and techniques that strengthen the constitutive elements of the public sphere: engaged citizenries, vibrant civil societies, plural and independent media systems, and open government institutions. Communication links these elements, forming a framework for national dialogue through which informed public opinion is shaped about key issues of public concern. Policy and Social Analysis of Participatory Budgeting A Small grants of $20,000 is available to practitioners from Africa working on social and policy aspects of participatory budgeting. These grants will support peer-to-peer learning on issues such as developing and improving policy framework to encourage participatory budgeting, and investigating the social analysis of instituting participatory budgeting. Examples of types of projects that this grant window will support include: stakeholder analysis projects, building government capacity to develop a policy framework for participatory budgeting, and studies to assess social impact associated with policy reforms to promote participatory budgeting. Research on the Revenue Side of Participatory Budgeting A small grant of $20,000 is available to practitioners from Africa researching the various aspects of the revenue side of participatory budgeting. These grants will support peer-to-peer learning on issues such as improve tax compliance, how participatory budgeting can improve local revenues, and fiscal literacy. Examples of types of projects that this grant window will support include: tools to understand municipal revenue management, and design mechanisms create citizen ownership, which in turn improve tax collection. Partners
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