From participatory budgeting to community-led services: The co-production journey of Çanakkale in Turkey

Outside Turkey Çanakkale is widely known for the nearby historic site Troy, which is visited by thousands of tourists every year. In Turkey Çanakkale has also developed a strong reputation for citizen participation in public decisions and community co-production of public services. The driving force has been the directly elected Mayor Mr Ülgür Gökhan of the CHP, which is a Social-Democratic Party. In the early 2000s he used the Agenda 21 process in Turkey as a window of opportunity to introduce citizen involvement in Çanakkale. Ferhat Emil and Elke Loeffler both had the opportunity to work with Evrim Akman in Çanakkale, who was key to the participation process from the very beginning within a UNDP project in 2006. Eight years after this project, citizen involvement in Çanakkale has matured and taken some new directions. 

This case study outlines the milestones, successes and barriers in the co-production journey and the lessons learnt by Çanakkale Municipality and citizen groups. 

Çanakkale Municipality (about 116,000 inhabitants) is the central municipality of the Çanakkale Province on the southern coast of the Dardanelles. The municipality is responsible for the provision of local infrastructure such as sewage, waste water treatment and road maintenance; public services such as local buses and cultural activities; and assistance to priority groups, such as the poor, elderly and people with disabilities. The local council is divided into seven neighbourhoods with a directly elected non-political local community manager (muhtar).

A number of legislative changes were made in 2005 to introduce a double devolution, from central government to both local government and to citizens. A ‘citizen assembly’ (Kent Konseyi) was established (which is not dissimilar to the former Local Strategic Partnerships in the UK). Furthermore, Çanakkale Municipality faced the challenge of drafting a multi-annual investment budget, following a legislative change making the development of strategic plans and multi-annual investment plans mandatory for all municipalities.

The Mayor, who is also the CEO of the local authority, took this opportunity to pilot citizen participation in the prioritisation of local infrastructure investments during the budget year 2005/2006.

The objectives of this so-called participatory budgeting project were:

• to build up trust in the new participation mechanisms such as the Kent Konseyi;
• to strengthen local accountability and financial discipline in the local council;
• to improve the decision-making process on priorities in local neighbourhoods;
• to strengthen social capital and community cohesion in the local area.

The participation process in Çanakkale Municipality was strongly driven by the Agenda 21 process and the development of the 2006-2010 Strategic Plan.

Inspired by the introduction of so-called ‘participatory budgeting’ in Porto Alegre, the Mayor wished to involve citizens in the priority setting process. At the same time, he also involved staff in the drafting of the strategic plan, something which is not common in the hierarchical culture of Turkish local government.

The participatory budget pilot in 2007 for preparing the 2008 local investment budget consisted of a three-step process, including:

1. an awareness-raising campaign,
2. a citizen survey to assess the willingness of citizens to take part in the new participation process,
3. public debates at neighbourhood level and the voting of citizens on investment priorities.

The campaign was designed to raise awareness of local citizens about their right to participate in the decision-making processes around investment priorities. The campaign included meetings with residents over a period of almost three months at neighbourhood level and the distribution of 10,000 flyers to households. Furthermore, a representative citizen survey conducted during the awareness-raising campaign showed that 30 % of citizens in Çanakkale were ready to be a part of the process of participatory budgeting, even though it was a new and unknown method back in 2007.

Public meetings were held to familiarise local people with the investment projects and the participation process and to recruit volunteers who would be interested in taking part in the monitoring and evaluation process. Local citizens were provided with information on the local budget, with a focus on the expenditure levels in previous years and forecasts of required resources. Based on this information, participants were asked to define the investment priorities of the city and their neighbourhood by ranking various options.

The community organisers at neighbourhood level – the Muhtars – played a key role in the participation process by assessing the infrastructure needs of neighbourhoods which were summarised in local investment demand lists.

Elected community organisers at neighbourhood level in Turkey

The Muhtars are a traditional institution in Turkey who are elected by local citizens at neighbourhood level. They play an important role in liaising with residents in their neighbourhood and passing on the complaints and requests of local people to the municipality or other agencies concerned. In the 2009 national elections, Turkish voters elected 18,607 Muhtars – only 2.3% being female. Muhtars discharge certain functions relating to both municipal and central government services, including:

• Administrative functions relating to the citizenship status of residents
• Management of social assistance or disadvantaged residents, in co-operation with public agencies
• Recording complaints of residents related to infrastructure issues and passing the complaints to the agency concerned (municipality, utility company or governorship).

The Muhtars also informed citizens about the participation process and built trust. They contributed to the work of the Investment Planning Committee and provided inputs to the evaluation report prepared by the Municipality.

The results of the local prioritisation was used for the 2008 investment planning by the Investment Planning Committee of the local council and municipal planning officers. Once the investment planning had been completed citizens were provided with feedback on the decisions of the Mayor in a second set of neighbourhood meetings.

Whenever possible, the investment planning respected the priorities voted for by local citizens. Obviously, the local council also had to be concerned about carrying out the local infrastructure works as efficient as possible. For example, it was impossible to prioritise road works in one neighbourhood and sewage in another neighbourhood, as most of the infrastructure projects had to be implemented district-wide or even city-wide. Therefore, the Mayor decided not to repeat participatory budgeting with infrastructure projects any longer.

However, the experience with a small community fund which was set up in 2007 to encourage citizen-led projects (related to the theme “greener, cleaner and safer”) was much more positive and sustainable. In 2007, four applications were received on improving green spaces and keeping them clean, and one application on community safety. In order to increase future participation and interest, all the applications were accepted and funded without. Three of these citizen-led initiatives related to improving and maintaining green spaces are still active in 2014. The municipality continues to encourage citizens to take ownership of their neighbourhood and to manage public spaces. At the same time, Çanakkale Municipality now tries to engage NGOs in running larger public spaces, such as picnic areas and tea gardens, which are currently managed by the municipality.

In another neighbourhood, citizens took on responsibilities for the maintenance and security of fire hydrants. In particular, the Municipality trained Roma people in using and looking after fire hydrants, as there had been lots of incidents where Roma people had removed and sold metal from fire hydrants. As more Roma people took part in the training the problem reduced. 

The personal priorities of the mayor have been replaced by the priorities of citizens voting in the neighbourhoods, giving a better understanding of local needs. Moreover, because of the active interest and involvement of citizens and the muhtars the delivery of the local infrastructure projects was on budget. This is a positive step towards an accountable local government and a vibrant local democracy

As a result, Muhtars have gained in importance in Çanakkale Municipality. They are now also in charge of strengthening partnership working of NGOs at neighbourhood level and across the city.

Most importantly, more and more citizens have become active in their neighbourhoods to improve green spaces, which has also fostered community cohesion. As the Director of Parks of Canakkale Municipality confirmed his department is getting more and more requests from the public to look after parks. A brilliant example is provided by the residents' group who had applied for a small grant to improve a local park in 2007. As the residents got older and some of the developed dementia the taxi drivers of a nearby taxi stand got involved and sponsored a water basin to provide water for street animals. Neighbours living close to the park provide the animals with food. Citizens who can no longer look after their pets now bring them to the park.

In 2007, nearly 500 inhabitants participated in the meetings at neighbourhood level. This number corresponds to about 0.6% of the total population of the city. However, the citizens who did attend the meetings have said that the participation of the mayor and the open dialogue with citizens have increased levels of trust and interest of wider groups of citizens in local projects and services. 

In particular, Çanakkale Municipality acted upon a key outcome of the 2007 citizen survey to build a community centre which was completed in 2013. The community centre is run by a young local resident and very successful in providing vocational training to women and young people.

The estimated cost of the participatory budgeting project 2006-2007 was TRY 35,000 (New Turkish Liras) which corresponds to £11000. These costs include the allocation of resources for the ‘community fund’ of TRY 25,000 and other direct costs such as communication. However, staff costs are not included. The 2007 pilot project also received technical support through an UNDP-led (and EU funded) project.

The fact that the Mayor takes part in the meetings with citizens is a significant factor in increasing the number of engaged citizens in Turkey. It enables face-to-face communication with the local leader which is seen as a positive factor.

The transfer of responsibility for the allocation of resources from the ‘community fund’ to local area committees and Muhtars has also proved to be very successful. This means that the local authority cannot interfere with the allocation of resources of community-led projects, which depoliticises the commissioning process.

At the same time, Çanakkale Municipality has become aware that it needs to do more to support citizens to overcome barriers to co-production. Public discontent with the performance of the municipality (such as long waiting times for services) may lead some citizens to take action themselves but there is a need for capacity-building both of local communities and of front-line staff and managers of the municipality, so that both work in a more collaborative way based on co-production principles. This will also require a clear definition of the ‘mutual tasks and responsibilities’ of local communities and the local authority. Most importantly, there needs to be a clearly defined role for local councillors who still have a very weak role in the recently decentralised local government system in Turkey.

Hale Evrim Akman and Bilal Özden (2009): Participatory Budgeting in Çanakkale, Turkey, in: OECD (ed.),  Focus on Citizens: Public Engagement for Better Policy and Services, Paris.