PB:
Scope and limits of public policy .*
Mariana Llona, \u200b\u200bLaura Soria.
unknown
Democracy is, first and foremost, and above all, an ideal. (...). Without an idealistic tendency is not born a democracy, and if born, quickly weakens. More than any different political regime, democracy goes against the current, against the inertial laws governing human groups. The monocracy, autocracies, dictatorships are easy, we are falling over themselves, democracies are difficult, must be promoted and believed.
Giovanni Sartori.
Presentation.
The new process of decentralization in the country, brought a regulatory framework that incorporates public participation in decision-making to local management. This presence is through the processes of participatory development (strategic and operational plans) and scheduling the public budget (PB). To achieve it has been amended and enacted new laws. After a constitutional reform and the adoption of the Basic Law of Decentralization, has shaped the overall framework needed to advance this process both politically and fiscal and institutional.
The immediate background of the development of participatory processes to larger scale have been the experiences of local participatory management of the 80 and 90s in the local area, which had the support of NGOs and development agencies international cooperation.
incorporate citizen participation in decision-making in local and regional management and make policy status means even overcome many resistors of different actors and in several areas where this is seen as a threat to the efficiency and effectiveness of democracy. In the debate is the apparent contradiction between the universal representation and participation.
not very far we have come since the issue of decentralization and citizen participation became part of the public agenda. However, we believe that enough time to pause for a moment and make a brief summary of actions taken, reviewing our old assumptions and posing new perspectives that will contribute to development of ongoing processes.
This article reflects on scope and limits of the participatory budget process in our country, and focuses on two main inputs: the first, referring to the interpretative frameworks that guide the process and the second on experiences developed in different localities. That is, conceptual elements on one side and other application elements.
The article is divided into five sections: 1) The process of decentralization in the country, which presents the most relevant aspects of context and key features that should be present, 2) the background of the participatory budget process, which presents previous experiences to the enactment of the participatory budget bill, 3) the interpretative framework, which presents a comprehensive analysis of the concepts that are considered central elements of this participatory process, 4) the revision of certain assumptions in the light of this information, and 5) comments end.
The process of decentralization in the country.
Peru is one of the most centralized countries in the region. Despite having more than 2,000 municipal governments, they managed only 5% of the budget of the republic. The central government concentrated, in 2000, 87% of government revenue after transfers of law, as opposed to 65% on average Governments of medium and large countries in the region and 54% in developed countries. At the level of public spending was the same behavior for the same year, local governments were responsible for 12% of total expenditure, compared to 34% in Latin America and 43% in developed countries.
our country's return to democratic channels resulted in an ambitious policy of democratization and state reform that sought independence from the judiciary and the legislature, to the modernization of the executive branch, through the long-awaited process of decentralization, claim permanent inland populations that no politician assume the government could fail to attend.
A broad spectrum of political and social forces of the country totaled will to make progress on this line. The signing of the National Accord signed in July 2001 by all political parties, after intensive consultation with civil society, seal this first stage of planning to work all the reorganization of the state.
And this occurs in a context that did not offer the best conditions. The country was also a political crisis, a period of economic stagnation. After nearly four years of stagnation in the growth rate was less than 1%, the economy Peru began to recover in the fourth quarter of 2001 with a GDP increase of around 3% and 5.3% in the second half of 2002. Resistance to initiate the process of decentralization by some sectors also had to do with fear about being given a messy process that had as its corollary a decontrol of our weak financial system1.
This new attempt to decentralize the country, with immediate background the experience developed in the late 80s (1985-1990). In this period developed a process that had serious design problems: the first has to do with a compulsive creation of 12 regions where crowded the 25 existing departments historically generated struggles for political influence and the budget allocation between them within the regional governments, and the second is associated with taxation messy and inconsistent with the responsibilities transferred. In 1992 this process was reversed by suspending the regional governments and replace them by a system of central government devolved administration in every department: the Transitory Councils of Regional Administration (CTAR).
The Peruvian government has currently four levels of government: i) the central government jurisdiction, ii) 25 regional governments based in the departments which in turn comprise, iii) 194 provincial municipalities, which are subdivided into iv) 1.864 distritales2 municipalities. These four levels of government remain very low coordination between them.3, making unviable any project of national development. The fragmentation of the institutional apparatus of the state, with the coexistence of different systems of organization and operation, presents serious obstacles to coordination.
The government also has presented throughout its history a very low degree of accountability due to the shortcomings of democratic institutions. Lack of transparency and slow to respond to citizens and to facilitate internal communication management national. Transaction costs may decrease with the introduction of information and communication technologies, while significantly increasing the transparency of government4. In the late nineties, control mechanisms and democracy were seriously affected by a decade of political violence and a decade of authoritarianism and corruption. Never failed to see a State to serve its citizens, to promote equal opportunities for all sectors of the population, who saw to the Peruvians and Peruvians, without exception, as individuals with rights.
This distortion of the state was also reflected in the deterioration of institutional capacities of public administration. The modernization and decentralization reforms were finally dashed in the mid-nineties, due to lack of political will by the Fujimori government. By the end of the nineties there were some advances, especially in the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), which among other actions implemented an integrated management system (FMIS) in all central government agencies. Fujimori In the period
also concentrated, so excessive public spending on the Ministry of the Presidency (MIPRE) 5 which was a clear weakening of the other ministries to which not only dismissed their operational capacity, but also influence over the production of public policy.
Congress ratified in March 2002, a constitutional amendment that created the regional governments (this time based on the departments), defines its basic political structure, provides for the gradual transfer of functions to these levels management and establishes the principle of participatory design of public budgets, among other topics.
For transfer of functions and resources is made successfully, these authorities must have adequate human resources, institutional capacity and management tools for institutional strengthening. The National Council for Decentralization envisaged that a training plan has not advanced to today in its effective implementation.
Local governments increasingly weakened, is still governed by operating rules that discourage tax collection propia6 and restricting their managerial autonomy. There is clear evidence of poor management capacity in many local governments, and the lack of adequate tools to provide services. Especially the districts, because of their size, have in many cases well-known shortcomings of management capacity. Due to their limited institutional and financial strength, municipalities have a real field much lower activity assigned to them by law. There is some evidence that domestic borrowing in several municipalities can be considerable, mainly due to its liabilities in pensions and social benefits are not well documented and lacking financial support.
These local government bodies show a marked structural weaknesses, specifically in the ability to promote local economic development and management of resources at their disposal, making them impossible to deal with serious problems such as unemployment, poverty and development of localities.
not have been free from allegations of corruption and financial instability, decision making in many cases arbitrarily, lack of transparency in the negotiations, reflecting levels of inefficiency and ineffectiveness. General7 diagnosis of these levels of government tell us, firstly the lack of qualified human resources as well as a tension between the authorities and the local population.
The need to modernize the state and articulating policies to social needs is an urgent demand. This is a challenge not only technical but mainly a political issue that is not perceived by most of our deteriorating political class.
is in this context - where on the one hand we have a real strong demand for decentralization and regionalization of the country, to modernize and democratize the state and on the other hand we face a series of long-standing institutional weaknesses - which are designed citizen participation mechanisms that seek to influence decision making on the management of the regions provinces and districts.
outlining three elements are fundamental then as if we set up a scenario in which citizen participation is possible: a) the right to citizenship, empowering people, organizations and associations of civil society to achieve a better balance of power in the decisions about public issues, b) the construction of policies in concert, in the belief that public policies are not only the responsibility of the state, and c) transparency and citizen oversight in governance, institutionalizing mechanisms to ensure that these processes are developed independently of individual wills. Background
participatory budget process.
Several factors have influenced the incorporation of citizen participation in public policy framework. The first one is related to the country's decentralization process and the interest by the central government to rationalize spending avoiding compromising fiscal discipline. The second is to do with a trend in the international community to promote democratization of States on citizenship issues públicos8. And finally, a third has to do with local experience of participation in land management that have proved relatively successful and incorporate into their activities coordinated planning and programming participatory budget.
In Peru, the experiences in participatory budgeting around, have some common characteristics. These are: a) a radius of influence at local level 9, the financial resources made available for discussion have been those of the municipality. In very few cases have influenced the investment decisions of provincial government bodies or regional (by department), although we had the active participation of officials of these institutions in the planning stage, b) expresses the political will , who assumed leadership of the process, but in very few cases, Villa El Salvador is one of them, had a normativo10 framework that would provide guarantees for the continuity of the process regardless of who takes the next administration, c) have supported by external actors, NGOs that channeled funds for international cooperation and facilitated the process by providing technical advice and d) show a marked difficulty in articulating the participatory budget development plans, with exceptions in most instances are guided by general goals and a long-term vision by making clear the gap between strategic and operational level.
will review, in this section, three specific cases succinctly: Villa El Salvador (south of Lima), Limatambo (Cusco) and the Participatory Budget Pilot Project that was developed at the level of 9 regions promoted by the Government and the Bureau of Agreement to Fight Poverty. All these processes have the particularity to have begun before the enactment of the Budget Framework Participatory and therefore have contributed to this management tool will become a state policy. Return to the initial concepts that led to the processes will enable us to better analyze the scope and limitations of current public policy.
The experience of the district of Villa El Salvador11.
organizational capacity of the population is one of the qualities that identifies the district of Villa El Salvador. Self-management, solidarity and pursuit of justice are socially recognized values \u200b\u200bon which this community is founded. The opinion of the organized community has always been an element to be considered for the management of the city. On order land was held for a long time, the pyramid-like social organization, including representatives of apple, residential groups, sector and distrito12. Political representation spaces occupied mostly by male community leaders. The city of Lima
contains one third of Peru's population, about 8 million inhabitants, which places it as the seventh most populous city in the Americas. Presents a clear spatial segregation that sets the country's major economic contrasts. In the south of the city (Southern Cone) are the poorest families in the metropolis, whose average income is U.S. $ 227 per month per family. Villa El Salvador is one of the 42 districts in Metropolitan Lima has.
Villa El Salvador houses more than 300.000 inhabitants, men and women. According to Population Census 1993, the district had 48% of households have inadequate physical characteristics and 18% in overcrowded conditions. About 29% of primary school children suffer from chronic malnutrition.
In recent decades, social organizations were losing representation and levels of articulation. Influenced this year's political violence experienced in the country, patronage of the Fujimori decade, the low permeability of the organizations rotation fees and basic needs were moderately satisfied.
This was the scene around the year 1999. The needs of the city gates in 2000 had changed and demanded other logics of management, new ways of engaging community participation in decision-making. This starts the participatory formulation of the third Development Plan in this district and implemented participatory budgeting as a management tool of the Plan. The district's development vision and strategic objectives were approved by the community in a Public Consultation held in October 1999 by a vote of 48,000 citizens. Throughout the planning stage the participation of the population, especially women and youth is very important. Then you will see that not be the same when it comes to deciding on the fate of public resources.
Villa El Salvador was probably the only district that had a local regulatory framework (Regulation Ordinance and Municipal) to institutionalize the process. This framework defined the phases of the participatory budget, the amount of budgetary allocation, the organization of the community for this, the subdivision of the district for this purpose, time, etc. In this regulatory framework was established that the unorganized population is also present in the process, but it was something that was difficult to operationalize.
When implemented the process of making decisions on public investment, and young women no longer have the same level of participation achieved in the planning stage.
This retreat is a first explained by the fact that the participatory budget process is held in first place in regional organizations that are led by adult males of the community, not having clear the role they should assume the functional organizations (soup kitchens popular glass of milk, etc.) and thematic (roundtables gender, environment, education, etc.) in this process.
Will stakeholder policy: local government and civil society, was engaged to carry out the process. Orders to initiate processes to revoke the Mayor were on the road, as it was understood that this process of citizen participation in city management, it was important for the future of Villa El Salvador.
The first participatory budgeting is carried out in 2000. So far this community has developed four participatory budget processes. The amount of municipal budget allocated for this purpose has been to 35% of FONCOMUN, ie, 2 million new soles.
The ordinance also identified the need to subdivide the land into 8 areas which in turn the budget was subdivided. In each of them would be established Territorial Development Committees (CDTs) to be instances of which would fall on the role of managing the participatory budget in its territory. The CUAVES, traditional organization of VES, felt his power and detracted from the municipality were created parallel organizations. In short, this was true. The CDTs have ended up in many areas of new spaces through which not only discusses the prioritization of projects, but also where the demands are channeled neighborhood.
Some mechanisms for monitoring and evaluation of the process were included from the first year of the experience. The results were not encouraging. It concluded that the participatory budget was not responding adequately to the general guidelines of the Development Plan. But the process was considered valuable as citizenship practices strengthened and promoted social surveillance. Municipal technicians had to "learn" to talk with representatives of the people, who in turn were taking a more active role, not only to monitor their rights, but becoming aware of their duties.
A new municipal management was taken over in the new elections of 2003. In a country devoid of institutions like ours, there was always doubt whether the new management would continue the direction taken concerted planning and participatory budgeting. So far it has recognized that the process of defining the district's development vision has been sufficiently validated through the Public Consultation, which has allowed to continue with the broad strategic objectives. By law, it is imperative that local governments submit to the Ministry of Finance estimates that have been discussed with the public. This has led to the fact that they continue with the process of participatory budgeting in the district. However, the need is emerging for the completion of the development plan (to programs and projects) and the temptation to make the whole process again always appealing.
rural experience in the Cusco13 Limatambo.
municipal government installed in 1993 and comprises three steps consecutivas14 ticked a substantial change in Limatambo characterized by openness to the participation of the rural population and the recognition of the civil rights of its people. But above all, and therein lies the greatest value of this experience, comes to court abolish feudal relations between the old bosses and lords of the area with the farmers of the same.
This district is also developing strategic planning processes which define the development goals and vision who want to achieve. Install the Common Council and Neighborhood (CCV), was created as an institutionalized partnership between a non-state and the district municipality, together with other public institutions. Furthermore, there are accountability processes and practices of participatory budget programming. Limatambo
district of the province of Anta, in the department of Cusco in Peru's southern highlands, has an area of \u200b\u200b428 km2, with a geography that includes valleys at an altitude of 2,300 to 4,200 meters, integrated with Apurimac River basin and consists of 33 rural communities. Its total population is about 48,000 inhabitants, 38 000 of them communicate in Quechua rather than Castilian and the illiteracy rate is high: 4 out of 10 people are illiterate. 1.742 had homes, where most (1.172) had a source of domestic water from rivers or canals, lacked sanitary facilities (1,639) and had no electric lighting at home (1.539).
Agrarian Reform Before the area was dominated by a hacienda system based on the maintenance of relations of servitude. The landowner provided the use of their plots and determined the conditions of access to them, they considered the delivery of products and included non-cash benefits that facilitated the extraction of surplus farmers in their favor.
Despite the agrarian reform, some former landowners remained in place due to the kindness of the valley. The old planters maintained the social practices of abuse, racism and discrimination against community members. Public officials were also under his control and, when not held directly, were careful to maintain the power to influence on the authorities. Similarly was the case with education officials, health, judiciary and police, who were part of a circle feared by the peasants.
In 1979 he created the Farmers' Federation Limatambo District. In the same year he also formed the Committee Local Tomato Growers Limatambo. In this same period, recognizes the right to vote of the illiterate, and thousands of peasants from Limatambo had the opportunity to enter the world of local politics.
vertical relations practices, which required the submission, made the services of the municipality was given the sole discretion of the gentlemen who took care of it. Thus the Vaso de Leche Program stayed in the urban area, not getting this extra food to poor rural children. Similarly, it is difficult for the population knew the economic resources of the municipality and the use that was it. Patronage and clientage were the forms of relationship between the municipality and citizens. Moreover part of this relationship meant the compulsory delivery quota of liquor by the farmers for the festivities, as well as the delivery of free working hours.
New players entered the local government in 1993, the representatives of the villagers themselves. The management of the municipality turned out to be new and overwhelming for its drivers, but still motivated to get a government to take into account the voice of the people who printed transparency to government actions and to order their actions. Wilbert Rozas
was mayor for nine years (1993 to 2002). He was a young developer who worked with the Confederation Campesina del Peru and was linked to a nongovernmental organization (NGO) promoting rural development. His candidacy was not based on a specific political party, offering career and committed to a well-known left-wing Christian leader who led an independent movement.
The situation of rural municipalities in Peru is very poor: they lack sufficient financial resources to perform its functions, home to the country's poorest population, insufficient infrastructure to provide services to the community, lack the necessary staff and / or date, among others.
At the beginning of the administration, they formed the Community and Neighborhood Council (CCV), which met in assembly and meets every month to make agreements and commitments. The mayor and the council should support their positions and try to get the community delegates to adhere to them. The other participants had an equal right to develop and support their proposals. This procedure, rather than challenging the power of elected officials, allowing in-depth exchange of views, while the authority that created the need to inform and educate to achieve adequate results. The CCV was to
planning powers, through which identified the causes of community problems and established the order of their importance and determine the axes of development and to develop annual operating plans, management, helping to define the forms of execution that the municipality will implement and control, which was accountable to the citizens by the authorities regarding the use of municipal resources and includes assessing the conduct of officials and compliance with the implementation of obras15.
Before the CCV deliberative sessions, should be developed in each community (33 in total), after a meeting which defined priorities and determined the work they considered priority to be executed the following year, each work should be inserted into an axis of development that the CCV established. 6 delegates were chosen (3 women16 and 3 men) to participate in the CCV with voice and vote.
This process led to the empowerment of social organizations and the acceleration of internal processes of growth and democratization. As in the case of Villa El Salvador, the initial voluntarism, in an effort to do everything in a short time, made the first year was particularly difficult and the fulfillment of commitments see delayed.
The Limatambo development plan was never written. However, everyone knows the contents of the proposal, they have resorted to cultural mechanisms that have allowed better transmission of ideas and commitments in in mind that the Andean culture is characterized as essentially oral.
The organization of activities around the axis objetivos17 possible to construct the idea of \u200b\u200bdevelopment, ie what can be achieved from a progressive process that requires permanent unit of the actors. The image of progress as possible is a significant achievement in half before overwhelmed by poverty and social domination.
This experiment failed to produce a local regulatory framework that would offer guarantees of continuity. The new county mayor (2003-2006) tried to ignore the achievements and previous proceedings, prompting the immediate reaction of the villagers. Finally, they have made CCV is respected as an area of \u200b\u200bconcerted government, now becoming the Local Coordinating Council, which provides for the law.
Pilot Operation participatory planning and programming of the public budget 200318.
A year before the new regional governments chosen by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, specifically the National Directorate of Public Budget implements the Pilot Operation Planning and Programming Participatory Budget 2003, joining it only 9 departments: Amazonas, Huanuco, Huancavelica , Junín, Moquegua, Pasco, Puno, Tacna and San Martín. The results were very important, it was possible to monitor drawbacks and the possibilities that this mechanism provided for the public budget management. But mostly it was possible to see clearly how inclusive methodologies in the decision making process can fully strengthen the relationship between State and Society, promoting the generation of new commitments sociales19.
The Roundtable for Poverty Reduction (MCLCP), created in the government of Valentin Paniagua, has an important role in this process. This is a coordinating body that gathers the diversity of local actors: civil society representatives and various public institutions in the region. At this stage they were in charge to promote the development of the Concerted Development Plans and to support the ct in the formulation of budgets.
This pilot was an important step for the country. The planning and participatory budgeting were considered from the Peruvian government agencies and representatives of civil society as instruments should be adopted in the process of decentralization and regionalization of the country.
The central actors in this process were the MEF and Roundtables to Combat Poverty (MCLCP), in coordination with CTARs carried out the implementation of the experience.
worth mentioning that the sustainability of the implementation of this pilot operation instructivo20 presented at the National Directorate of Public Budget, frames the process criteria of effectiveness, efficiency, equity, transparency and decentralization, thus contributing to strengthening the democratic process in the country and recognized as an important participant social actors to more appropriately incorporate the aspirations of the representative groups of society on priorities in public spending on investment.
It is mentioned that fueled this process considerations such as social control of public activities, productivity of public resources, encourage citizenship active and responsible (moderate social expectations and demands sort of expenditure) and incorporation of excluded groups to exercise full citizenship
Thus, the plans agreed that the officers of the Coalition to Fight Poverty had begun to develop could have the inclusion of the budget would be done in a participatory manner. However, the policy is not saying he should only be made on the basis of the budget that had the CTAR. Discussion was only the public budget which transfers the central government to regions and did not join the budgets of other sectors (education, health, work, etc.) and even private institutions (NGOs, churches, etc.).
Of the 22 departments that submitted their Concerted Departmental Development Plan (PDDC), only 9 regions qualified for the pilot participatory budget. These showed democratic maturity and consultation to accompany his PDDC the signatures of all players. This number surpassed the expectations of the MEF that was considered at first instance that would only take place in 3 regions. The score was not based on the quality of the Plan but by the ability of agreement demonstrated.
This budget ceilings set of resources for each region considering the levels of poverty and workshops for the final determination of investment priorities in the light of fiscal constraints and the technical feasibility of projects.
MCLCP The chairs of the appointments were made from the central coordination in Lima, although in many cases no mistake, these presidents lacked leadership legitimately recognized by all actors. These presidents had to devote effort to build leadership valid medium built while the conciliation process. Legitimizing the MCLCP
was not easy, especially if we consider that in many parts of the country there were instances consultation they had, earlier, for example MECODEH in Huancavelica. The difference was that in the MCLCP was mandatory participation of public representatives of the sectors and CTARs and various mayors.
remember that the political context of the time the election was influenced by regional and local governments. This meant that candidates have a presence Mayors less active and integrated into the final stage under the arm carrying a portfolio of projects that would enable them to continue in the race elections.
Two big players were absent: political parties and the business sector, mainly large companies. For example, in Huancavelica not involved in the planning process mining companies, the same occurred in Piura and San Martín, the channels of action of this sector remained outside regional areas.
Through this brief review of these experiences can be pointed out first, the essential role played by the political will of the authorities for the development of participatory processes. This means that responsibility is assumed with the risks and commitments that become the process. In the pilot operation, this situation does not occur in the same way, participation of citizens is an imperative to act rests with the possibilities of dialogue, exchange and negotiation in a process like this, lost in some cases the educational process and democratization of the relations established in the territory.
This type of process depends on the social, cultural, economic and social policy area where they operate and the internal dynamics that are established there, the types of actors are involved, the relationships that are formed within and local extra. But they must have as its starting point the desire to reverse the vertical relationships in not taking into account the rights and duties of citizens and, as is the case Limatambo experience.
Similarly, in all these cases the budget on which is still being discussed that comes from central government transfers to local levels of government, leaving aside the discussion on the budget of the town, in which actions are performed by several sectors (education, health , security, work, etc.) and their own institutions (NGOs, churches, businesses, etc.).. The inclusion of these assumptions will table discussion on the nature of the institutions on the basis of the development objective of the locality and reflect on the major activities that they must develop to achieve this goal.
Another aspect that may recover from these experiences is the institutional weakness in the country, leading to advances obtained in the processes are not often respected by the subsequent steps, in many cases returning to the starting point.
However, the construction and development plans agreed the design, management and monitoring of participatory budgeting should be thought of as a process. This means that there are no simple formulas for the application. They are based on the continuous construction of trial and error, the ability of constant innovation and constantly responding to the demands that occur on the road. Interpretative Marcos
Participatory Budget.
Participatory Budgeting is a management tool that allows the inclusion of citizens in making public investment decisions. It is a political and technical process at a time. Tends to change depending on the level of political maturity of the actors, the characteristics of the territory, the level of consolidation of institutions, among others. Through this management tool is about citizenship to the city government.
The Participatory Budget is merely an instrument whereby they guarantee the collective interests in the prioritization of public expenditure, leaving aside a particular interest in individual decisions regarding public investment. And it has already become a public policy in our country. As indicated
Araujo, Guzman and Mauro21, public problems do not exist by themselves as mere objective phenomena, but are constructed by actors who move in different scenarios, exchanging and confronting discourses that are based on various interpretative frameworks. In the case of PB have been equally diverse interpretive frameworks that have been supported by the disparate stakeholders, the review of these will be the focus of this section.
These same authors note that the ideal of the development cycle public policy is as follows: a) theming and questioning of an experience different actors conceive of it as unacceptable, b) development of the subject as a public issue, which involves: defining the problem, hypotheses of possible causes and advancement of solutions, c) incorporating the theme in the institutional agenda, which means the translation to different political and institutional logic d) construction of legal norms.
steps on this chain, we must note that the participatory budget, not a citizen initiative, ie not arising from an express request to convert it to mode things, and therein lies its main weakness. This process arises from the political opportunities that are presented in the light of the new process of decentralization and local practices with relative success prior favorable results are brought to the table by the operators of development in order to influence decision-making spheres. Many of these non-governmental organizations and its professionals offer technical support to process support - as we shall see - is maintained even in the areas of decision making.
Not having as starting point a civil society initiative, makes the process has two disadvantages as a high level of distrust from the public on the system same and their representatives. This barrier is at the beginning of almost all processes that start of compulsory product law.
In search of closer relations between State and Civil Society continues to maintain a reading more technical than political. This results in the bureaucratization of these grassroots organizations by specializing in budget issues. And on the other hand, the orientation of the investment is left to the building of the organizations that respond primarily to their specific needs and immediate and this is reflected in a spray of the limited budget.
Before proceeding to review the interpretative framework that expressed in the set of laws produced, presenting the point of view from which we understand this process. This particular view suggests three core elements that such processes should enable:
Local Participatory Management.
A local participatory management involves the socialization of power, social inclusion and increasing efficiency and effectiveness of public spending. This leads to generate innovative management and citizen participation, to break the political control of local elites and corrupt bureaucratic forms and client, restore the capacity of intervention of citizens as collective actors and public power as a regulator of life social order to assert a dominance of public interest over private interests and corporate.
It also means a change in the design of institutions and their functioning to boost the process of social change in order to address the multiple dynamics of society in a fair prospect of building cities, democratic and sustainable. A public institution that demonstrates that the democratically manage the territory, according to a public interest, increase their efficiency in providing services, and this affects the quality of life of citizens, especially the most vulnerable population segments.
As we see, this way of managing The area contains two inseparable areas: Civic Engagement
. That should begin to consider new forms of inclusion, consultation and / or mobilization in order to inform and influence political institutions and a high level. This demands an active and engaged civil society, able to express demands of citizenship, which would strengthen the social fabric and incorporated into the agenda the legitimacy of the representatives. A civil society a pledge of opportunities for consultation between the public and the authorities in the co-administration of the territory.
institutional design and adaptation of governance structures. Build bureaucracies prepared to incorporate them into collective decisions and actions and structures to effectively put a transparent management (accountability). This also means establishing communication links and permanent information with citizens.
Thus understood, the link between the citizen and the state must be based on participation and inclusion. Participatory management facilitates the creation of public spheres, not state, autonomous activities will be referred to the different directions of the government entity.
Citizenship.
understood not only as equality of individuals before the ley22, which provides a set of rights and responsibilities granted by the state to its citizens, but also as the right to participate in decisions related to social, economic, cultural and political. That is, participate in decisions that affect their lives. Neglecting passive citizenship action where compliance is reduced vote.
These participatory processes intended to strengthen civil society and to foster a dynamic and continuous learning, which promotes discussion and negotiation and incentives and constitute new spaces for collective action. At the same time renewing local leadership and strengthen shared identities from an overview of the expected future for the territory. Sustainable
But these participatory processes also have to pay at the sustainable development of the territory to direct their actions to reduce the one hand social and economic inequalities of the territory, and other social and spatial segregation.
The key here is the sum of efforts to find the efficiency of investment that permits direct actions to change the conditions of inequality in our cities and improve the quality of life for its inhabitants. Ensure getting scarce economic resources which our country are well invertidos23.
The steady development of country depends upon public action national, regional and local development plans articulated to collect local development initiatives and executed on the basis of local coordination, thus becoming the support of a new strategy for long-term development of the country.
It is to generate local development conditions and basic political agreements. The inclusion of all stakeholders is necessary, but do not think only of the economically disadvantaged population segments or not always represented, but also regional economic forces (Business Sector: large and medium enterprises) to be articulated to work to achieve sustainable development and sustainability of our regions. Regulatory Framework
However, the Decentralization Bases Law defines the principles that govern the process, among which: a) the distribution of services and skills of three levels of government, b) transfer mechanisms and revenue and the National Decentralization Council (CND), created as an intergovernmental body governing the decentralization process, comprising representatives of Government (PCM and MEF), of regional and local governments and chaired by a Minister without portfolio appointed by the President of the Republic. This entity is responsible for supporting the institutional strengthening of regional and local governments, channeling international technical assistance, design plans for transferring resources and responsibilities to regional and local governments and management information system for monitoring the decentralization process, among other functions.
Added to this process a new agent, the Organic Law of Regional Governments and the Organic Law of Municipalities, luggage and is the Regional Coordinating Councils and local (provincial and district level). These tips are opportunities for coordination and consultation between the authorities and civil society and its activities are related to the development plan and the process of participatory budgeting. Representatives of civil society in these spaces should not exceed 40% of the total and should be elected in local elections from a variety of grassroots organizations that presentan24.
The Framework Law of Participatory Budgeting has as guiding principles: a) the participation of civil society in the programming of the budget in line with their development plans, b) the transparency of the budget, that people can access it, c ) equality in both society organizations have the same opportunities to intervene and participate without discrimination for political, ideological, religious, racial or otherwise, in the planning and participatory budgeting d) tolerance, e) the efficiency and effectiveness, f) equity, equity considerations are a constituent component of the management and guide regional and local levels, without discrimination, equal access to opportunities and inclusion of social sector groups that need to be treated in a special way, g) competitiveness and finally, h) respect the agreements. Define
participatory budgeting as a mechanism for equitable allocation, rational, efficient, effective and transparent management of public resources, which strengthens the State-civil society relations.
Regulation of the Framework Act goes a little deeper into the definition and recognizes the character process: a process that strengthens State-society relations, in which priorities are set on the actions to be implemented at the level of Regional and Local Government, with the participation of organized society, generating commitments from all actors involved to achieve strategic objectives. Makes binding decisions or agreements to take over the government's actions and also notes that public participation will be through the representation of the leaders of local social organizations. No weighting any of them and giving equal weight to each other. Participants
defines as agents as those who participate, with voice and vote in the discussion and decision decisions in the process of participatory budgeting. They are composed by members of the Regional Coordinating Council, Local Coordinating Council, members of the Regional Councils and Municipal Councils, representatives of civil society identified for this purpose as stated in Article 5 of Regulation and representatives of Government entities that develop activities in the field of the region, province or district and designated for such purpose, Participant Agents also integrates a Task Force to support the process that participates with voice but no vote in the process. And in this case placed on the same level of civil society representatives to Regional Coordinating Councils and Local delegates from social organizations to the process of participatory budgeting.
Following the regulation, it includes civil society and grassroots organizations territorial or thematic as well as private organizations and institutions within the regional or local. Note here that is removed here by functional organizations, those that deal with attention problems of subsistence, and organizations are the few places where the presence of women is important. You are not pointing to it that the budget must necessarily be aimed at solving specific problems of these organizations (Production workshops, training, etc.), But rather that their inclusion should be framed in the female-to-city.
The objectives are: a) improve efficiency in the allocation and implementation of public resources according to priorities considered in the Concerted Development Plans, b) strengthening the relationship between state and society, c) commit the Society Civil actions to be taken to fulfill the strategic objectives of the plan; d) identify priorities for public investment, and e) strengthening monitoring, control, monitoring of budget execution and management control.
The final document ordering process is the Instructivo25 jointly produced by the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), specifically the National Directorate of Public Budget and the National Decentralization Council (CND), which happens to be the reference document for government agencies to implement these processes in the territory. This Instruction is mainly characterized by its technical nature and management of the process.
It aims to regulate the process of scheduling public participatory budgeting, coordinating the various levels of government: regional, provincial and local levels. And direct linkages with the various development plans agreed. But also seeks to influence the reorientation of the regional and local governments themselves towards achieving the vision and development goals agreed in concert for the community, which must be present in their own institutional strategic plans. A table at the end of the instructions presented the proposed criteria for prioritizing projects to be submitted in this process.
This curiously instructive joined the unorganized population in the process of participatory budgeting. And it contemplates the need for local legal framework through the enactment of local ordinances or regional order process.
is, as you go along in the formulation of the regulatory framework of the process, the technical profile of participatory budgeting is gaining ground, losing its political democratization achieve not only the state but of the same society and interpersonal relationships. The inclusion of population segments, especially underserved populations almost always, it is always difficult to operationalize. And it is expected that this will be resolved at the local and / or regional, which due to the weakness of these stocks does not always come to shop. Review
hypothesis.
Hypothesis 1. Agreed development plans must be articulated at different levels of government and different citizen participation process to achieve development in a given locality.
In practice development plans are being arranged, rather than management tools, the new social contract is established in the territory. The visions of development and the strategies the will end up concentrating on how it should be the territory. Suman positions and all must be included in it. However, in many cases far from being an instrument disaggregated to levels that include programs, projects and measurements to enable monitoring and evaluation of results, not only by levels of government but of other existing institutions in the territory, public or private.
In the construction of these development plans have been committed grassroots organizations, but have been absent that just may help boost local development such as the business sector. Additionally, they have not been attended by representatives of the sectors that implement actions on the territory such as education, health, agriculture, among others.
social organizations have made significant progress in achieving development express their expectations. But local governments have been those who had to achieve higher levels of technology that allow operationalize these expectations and express them in a plan. These plans do not always have been formulated precisely to set the course and long-term strategic vision of the region, province and / or district and constitute the framework for action at short and medium term. Institutional weaknesses in terms of human resources, has been until now one of the major bottlenecks in these processes.
The absence of a national planning system to set basic criteria and methodologies makes standard construction methods used were dissimilar and technical consistency of the same (approach, quality and use of instruments, among others) were pretty weak.
should also add, how difficult which is the articulation between different levels of government: regional, provincial and district levels. In most cases there is little coordination between the district and regional plans and other non-existent.
Hypothesis 2. Participatory budgeting is an instrument for the management of agreed development plans, with which it ensures compliance objectives.
However, there are few cases where the prioritization of works of participatory budgeting is closely related to the agreed plan. Prioritization almost always ends up being a "list of small works" 26 to express in one hand, the search for justice the distribution of resources and on the other hand, weak local capacity to express a strategic vision of development.
The topic of discussion when defining the prioritization of projects are the immediate needs, sidewalks, parks, community centers, etc. The evaluation of the Urban Development Division of the Municipality of Villa El Salvador in 2003, focused on maintenance costs that were not foreseen at the time of execution of the work, costs must then be recharged to the local poor. Also, many of the works that were prioritized as parks or green areas did not include the subsequent maintenance costs, lost even that investment.
neighborhood works in the case of the districts of Villa Maria, Lurin, San Juan de Miraflores and Villa El Salvador, might find better reflection on participatory budgeting, but it should still be driven by management with a vision of development and that is a longer-term work that can not only be the construction of the plan. If civil society and put on the table you want to accomplish in your district, is now a matter of local management capacity to achieve better results and that is related to the central government's political will to increase transfers to governments regional and municipal.
Hypothesis 3. The participatory budget process runs the risk of "spraying" the government budget while leaving aside the political agenda the debate on major issues of the locality, focusing his gaze on the short term.
populations involved in these processes are more concerned about the work that should be targeted to define the lines of development in the locality. The looks of the actors are still focusing on neighborhoods, rather than the city, state, region or country.
carrying the large local discussions and in the absence of political positions (and a weak party system) threads are still localized and debate issues continue to focus en los problemas del barrio, del entorno inmediato.
El presupuesto sobre el cual se discute tiende aún a ser muy bajo. Del presupuesto público el gasto corriente, incluyendo la deuda pública representa el 90,2% y el gasto de capital 9,8%. La inversión estatal llega al 79% y el 21% está destinado a las regiones (635,6 millones de nuevos soles).
El gobierno central sigue controlando más de las ¾ partes del presupuesto total. Del 2002 al 2004 los gobiernos regionales y los gobiernos locales han aumentado su participación solamente del 13 al 15% y del 5 al 8% del total nacional, respectivamente.
Un porcentaje ínfimo del presupuesto general que es sometido a los procesos de concertación y planificación participatory. To this we add the fragmentation of the social fabric, the persistence of a culture based on a patronage relationship with the state, both grassroots organizations and business sectors, even from their own party structures.
Hypothesis 4: The institutional weakness of the regional and local governments and the limited capacity of officials undermines the development of this process.
One of the main "bottleneck" is the technical capacity of regions for project development. They do not have skilled human resources to face this task. Efforts to ad hoc training staff do not always have the expected results, given the piecemeal training process and the fact that such staff tends to be removed from office frequently.
This jeopardizes the credibility and sustainability of such processes. It is difficult to strengthen citizen participation processes if not resolved this type of "bottlenecks" that may end up undermining confidence in consultation processes.
This requires an internal reengineering at the level of regional government bodies and municipal and intra-institutional coordination of the different managements. In the case of the Municipality of Villa Maria del Triunfo actions of the administrative apparatus were designed to facilitate proceso27 performance. Thus managers as Planning and Budget, Poverty Reduction, Participation and Urban Development Neighborhood Task Force formed the Municipal coordinated actions throughout the process of participatory budgeting. It should be noted also the committed work that took some aldermen, whose presence, even in the same space training was very important for the development process.
District Participatory processes are led by Local Government, represented by the Mayor. The Instructions of the MEF, said the importance of having and submit the following information: i) concerted development plan, ii) institutional development plan of local government iii) PB 2004 - detail actions, progress in implementation, etc .-, iv) list of projects implemented by local government concluded and maintenance costs, v) details of the total resources allocated to local government implementation of actions resulting from the process, vi) report of the commitments made by civil society and the private sector prior participatory processes and their level of compliance and vii) progress report on improvements in competitiveness: infrastructure, education, health, Safety, among others.
Overall, local governments have made some effort to provide timely information to the public when having to make decisions about the prioritization of work. However, having such information requires a greater level of internal organization to centralize and analyze local data to various offices can provide. Regional and local governments are not systematized the basic information for your region or district, and despite progress in some areas, this remains a major limitation for the processes of decision making and citizen oversight.
Hypothesis 5. Participatory processes allow the exercise of citizenship of the population.
To do this we must ask who are participating so far this type of process. Scarcity information and little existing broadcast result to be the traditional organizations that handle the little existing information and maintain communication with weak bases, they have no objections alternating processes, transparency in its management, etc.
One of the main problems had to overcome one of the districts was to ensure that the works to be presented in the deliberative assemblies necessarily come from previous consensus in the community. So far progress has been made to ensure that delegates have the support of their organizaciones28.
Another example is the process of participatory budgeting in Villa El Salvador. For prioritization of works performed at assemblies of the eight areas has been divided territorially the district where they can participate (and vote for a project), all inhabitants aged 16 years, organized or not. This is apparently a combination of representative democracy with direct democracy. But in practice this area ends up being an amalgam of people, among which we find that only represent themselves, who do represent an association, and those who claim to represent an organization that in fact no longer remains. The issue of representation becomes a problem when making decisions in democratic spaces. The social sectors now have the challenge of renewing their leadership, building capacity to conclude with the State based on their interests. This means solving existing conflicts and move forward in terms of their representation.
Hypothesis 6. Participatory processes allow for the inclusion of local actors usually excluded from decision-making, such as women and indigenous populations. In the local
plays the same national structure. The presence of the voice of women in Coordinating Councils is limited. At the regional level only 22% of representatives are women. The number of organizations registered to participate in the recent election of the Regional Coordinating Councils has been of 1.118 in the entire country.29.
regional governments opted for quotas for women were 11, Callao, Cusco, Huancavelica, Huanuco, La Libertad, Moquegua, Pasco, Piura, San Martín, Tacna and Ucvayali. That is less than half of regional governments in the country. And those who opted for quotas for Indians were 6: Cajamarca, Cusco, Huanuco, Pasco, San Martin and Ucayali.
social representatives to the Coordinating Council Regional30 by type of organization were: employers' organizations and farmers (30.6%), agricultural organizations, labor, and neighborhood (20.6%), professional (12.4%), women's organizations (8.2% ), NGOs (8.2%), universities and colleges (8.2%), peasant organizations and indigenous communities (7.7%). Adding women's organizations and peasant and indigenous communities they constitute only 15.9% of the total.
The number of representatives of civil society in NGOs PB 200431 (27%), MCLCP (13.5%), Professional (8.1%), organization of producers, private companies (8.4%), grassroots organizations ( 8.1%), universities (6.1%). "NGOs, the MCLCP, some universities and professional technical and assumed a proactive role. Of other grassroots organizations showed a role applicant of special and local requirements, a problem becoming notorious for this exercise capacity development planning and prioritizing regional investment. " Limited was the presence of universities, employers and political parties.
A review of the progress in decentralizing states that have not yet succeeded in transforming the central paradigm that excludes non-dominant cultural groups and that, on the contrary, it plays in regional and local level.
participation of representatives of grassroots organizations clearly expressed how women and young people have greater presence in space sensitization and / or training and much smaller presence in deliberative spaces where male participation is still higher: 70%. This is associated with territorial nature of the participatory budget process and its relationship to turn everything into urban infrastructure projects.
Concluding remarks.
Participatory Budgeting in itself is not a process of citizenship. It is an instrument that can feed the notion of citizenship, but that needs to be properly oriented to achieve that end.
instruments alone do not guarantee democracy. One is to create mechanisms to avoid shares of power and their concentration. It requires continuous evaluation and feedback the process continually going to monitor the problems and solutions that are arising. However, these instruments still used to create an imperfect practice, bringing the population on their rights and responsibilities as citizens and participate in decisions that affect their lives. Achieving
institutionalize this process at all levels of government is still a challenge. The institutional planning processes and participatory budgeting initiatives are a prerequisite for their sustainability. A legal framework can provide institutions, but by itself is not enough: an ordinance can be repealed by the following local management. This shows that generating institutions is more complex than just the political will. Assumes that all actors to recognize the same space as legitimate and therefore constitute the privileged channel defining the objectives and prioritize resources, may not have laws but rather a practice sanctioned as valid by the community. That is the institution we need when we are committed to concerted processes.
Only thus do not depend on political will of those who lead the process, it will have become a practice, a habit, in the way of doing things.
The latest UNDP report on Democracy shows the tension between the option for economic development and democracy in our countries. Citizens value the development above would detract democracy and even supported a democratic government if it proved incapable of solving its economic problems.
And it is these people, from areas with fewer opportunities for education, whose socialization took place mainly during periods of authoritarianism, have low expectations of social mobility and a distrust of democratic institutions and politicians. Also, people who are more likely to support democracy, not expressed through political organizations.
Planet Report that the starting point for strengthening democracy involves re-evaluate the content and relevance of the policy, argues that solutions to the problems and challenges of democracy should be sought within and not outside democratic institutions, and is to be recovered a constructive role as policy decisions ordering of society.
The sustainable poverty reduction requires equitable growth, but also requires that the excluded to improve their political position. The best way to get consistent with human development objectives is by building strong and deep forms of democratic governance at all levels of society. While experienced significant
changes, the party systems tend to be instrumental and operational, while they need is strengthened to expand the effectiveness, transparency and accountability. Political parties should better understand the changes in contemporary societies, propose new projects for society and promote public debate.
is essential to promote strategies for strengthening civil society and its articulation with the state and political parties. Processes such as participatory budgeting provide us with elements in the search for alternative forms of social and political representation, to recreate citizen oversight mechanisms that constitute an effective way to monitor and assess the processes and to regain mutual trust between the state and civil society calling for transparency in relationships and acts of government.
(*) Paper presented at the First Conference of the Network Monitoring, Evaluation and Systematization
Latin America and the Caribbean (ReLAC). "Evaluation, Democracy and Governance: Challenges for Latin America." Lima, Peru, 20 - 22 October 2004
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