Participatory Budgeting in the city of Recife, Brazil - the world’s most participative public agency?

Change management

Recife is divided into 6 regions, each of which has 3 ‘micro-regions’. The area-based discussions in PB take place in these 18 micro-regions. There are four basic processes involved in the Recife PB:

A.    Generating proposals for the most important projects or service changes to consider for the next year.

B.    Getting citizens to vote on these, so that the priorities can be established

C.    Refining these priority projects/service changes, so that they are more practical and cost-effective.

D.    Monitoring the implementation of the agreed (and refined) priority projects.

Generating proposals for projects and service changes

People in each micro-region are encouraged to get together to propose initiatives or projects. In 2011, PB meeting started at the end of May, with one meeting per night – 4 were held in each of the 18 micro-regions (plus premeetings in each micro-region to explain the methodology and encourage people to think about projects to nominate. This nomination period usually lasts about 14 days.  Originally, it was enough for people to make general proposals but now, as experience has accumulated, specific proposals have to  be put forward, e.g. on location, size, etc.

When these projects have been chosen, each micro-region holds four or five meetings to discuss which of these should go forward to the overall region to be voted on. 

At the final meeting, groups of 10 people can nominate a delegate to go forward and two proposals, each of which has to be in the remit of two different Directorates (Secretarios) of city hall, such as housing or education. The PB approach has been designed to preserve the rights of citizens to propose projects which they want, even citizens who are clearly organizing themselves through opposition parties. 

Every 10 people in the mico-regions can choose one delegate. (Although some delegates end up with far more than ten votes, the City Council encourages people to elect as many delegates as possible).  Then every month there are meetings with all the delegates to discuss the progress with the proposals and wider problems in the microregions. These meetings also choose micro-region coordinators and working groups (‘commissions’) to tackle specifc issues.  
Each micro-region co-ordinator has their own team and acts as first point of contact, mobilizes people to come to meeting, and encourages them to follow up. They also act as a bridge with the public sector – traditionally, public sector officials don’t understand or know  much about the life of ordinary people, as they live in very different circumstances. However, people in the favelas (or slums) of the city, make up over half the population – and this ‘emerging market’ has significant power, both in the marketplace and in elections.

Therefore city hall officials have increasingly realized that people have to be asked what exactly they want in their areas. In the past it was often the case that local leaders believed they knew the answers, insisting, for example, that local people just wanted proper roads in their area. However when local people were actually asked, they often had very different priorities – like adequate schools or health facilities. In Recife it is now clear that the views of local people have to be sought in order for local government to be legitimate. 

Effective partnership working can improve the viability of PB – e.g. one shopping mall signed up to undertake one PB project as part of its planning agreement with the city – this was good for the PB process AND for the mall . However, this is complicated and requires flexibility on all sides - every year there are new PB projects, many of which require new kinds of partnership working.

Voting on priorities

The projects proposed at the previous stage are considered in a plenary meeting of people in the region, where people vote for the ten priorities of that region. Importantly, for those who can’t attend these meetings there are two other opportunities to vote – electronic voting machines are located at strategic points within each area or online voting is possible through the City Council’s  website. To ensure fair voting, citizens have to register to vote using their ID cards or any other formal document.

Identification of electronic voters

Everyone has two votes – one on specific projects proposed for their region and one thematic vote, where they indicate the key area of the city’s budget they consider to be the highest priority. Interestingly (and similarly to many PB initiatives in the UK), groups of people in microregions often agree to vote for each other’s proposals.

In contrast to PB approaches in other parts of Brazil, the whole budget is potentially voted on – not just the investment budget. About 8% - 10% of total municipal budget is voted on each year in PB projects, infrastructure proposals, local initiatives, etc. All services have been a priority at one time or another since 2001.

This process has remained almost unchanged since 2001, with the exception of the introduction of  digital voting and the streamlining of some processes in 2007.

Refining projects and service changes

After the votes have decided the region’s priorities, local forums consider all the proposals  chosen – this allows some small scale redesign.

At this stage, costs are also brought into the choice of projects. Up to this stage, no specific costings have been made for proposals, although there is always a sense of what’s more and less expensive. For example, drainage channels are known to be a big job – in such cases, people are encouraged to break down proposals into several stages and consider them as separate projects, e.g. buying the land first, and then later building the specific facility.

There is no limit to the level of investment which can be proposed – it depends on the local context and needs. In hilly areas, like Ibullia, each proposal for stabilizing land can cost up to R$ 1m – but if this is what local people ask for as a priority, then they get it.

However, all Directorates (Secretarios) of the City Council are consulted about the viability of  projects before they go ahead. If they say: “No, not feasible!” then the proposal goes back to the people of the region to discuss further – this doesn’t happen frequently, as there is discussion about project feasibility  early on. Moreover, the ten years of PB have educated local people about what is realistic and what isn’t, so they generally vote for feasible options. If Directorates disagree about feasibility, which happens only rarely, then the mayor makes the final decision.

Although theoretically officials might mobilize to get their own ‘pet’ projects chosen at local level, there has been no sign of this happening – it is widely believed that people are too clever politically to allow this to succeed. Of course, at the thematic meetings, there are specific opportunities for the Directorates to make suggestions about which initiatives within their Directorate might be important for people to vote on through the PB approach.

Monitoring projects and service changes

After the priority proposals have been voted for, there are regular forums to monitor the implementation of these proposals until completion. Of course, the process has to allow for funding to be put in place and full design to be carried out. In the early days of PB there could be a delay of up to 5 years but now the target is to complete all initiatives within 2 years (although it still often takes 3 years in practice). 

The micro-region co-ordinators, together with their own team and the local people elected to the ‘commissions’, have the role of ensuring timely implementation.  Moreover, every 14 days there is a meeting of the commission to consider progress of each initiative - here the commission gets an update from city council staff and discusses how to effectively communicate the project.  Of course, some projects have an impact on wider areas or on the whole city – e.g. public toilets close to beach in one area – so approaches to communication have to differ between projects.

A key issue in implementation is, of course, finding the necessary resources. When João da Costa was Director of PB, he often had to find the resources alone. However, now that he has become mayor, this has become more of a joint effort by all the Directors. This has been made easier since it is now possible to show that what people are voting in the PB is, in any case, in line with what most Directors actually have suggested as most important for the city.

One remaining weakness in the PB system in Recife is evaluation of its impacts. A key politician in Recife described the evaluation approach as ‘fragile’ – mainly done internally, usually quite partial rather than through a structured method, and not using citizens as independent evaluators (although the PB commissions do some kinds of evaluation as part of their monitoring role).

Role of citizen co-production in PB in Recife

In Recife, the challenge in PB is seen to be how to use social networks in the city to help people to share their knowledge with government and to realize they can and should make a difference.  In the minds of many local people,”the public sector should be doing this” even though they see that their co-production works. A similar learning process is taking place among the City Council’s technical and professional staff.

There are now 60 local associations bringing people together in the PB process, covering old people, young people, and many other groups – recently a new group of LGBTs has emerged.

Actually, PB has become the main social mechanism for many activities of the city government – every time there is need for dialogue and new ways of doing things, it is natural to do it through the PB structures and processes. In many communities, for example, where there has been serious violence, the staff involved in PB are the only part of the council which can operate effectively. Consequently, due to its credibility with and access to communities, PB has taken on extra tasks.

Effective working relationships between the PB team and the community are more easily developed because most staff come from these poorer areas. Over time, some members of the teams have moved to other posts in the city government, spreading the ethos of this way of working. However, many of these staff members continue to live in the poorer areas of the city and they demonstrate an example which is widely respected – a very different approach to the traditional public officials whom they have replaced.
Nevertheless, in spite of the range of expertise which local people have now developed through PB, there are still barriers to wider involvement in the work of the City Council. Although some pressure to employ local people is put on the firms contracted to carry out construction initiatives undertaken through PB, it has proved difficult to convince them to do so. At best, they typically just offer low-skill jobs – although even this helps, as it ensures that local people are involved and can keep the project on the right lines. It is even harder in relation to projects which don’t involve construction (e.g. street cleaning) - the companies which win these contracts typically have their own employees and are reluctant to employ local people.