This is a CTP of initiative: Participatory Budgeting Belo Horizonte (Brazil)
The Participatory Budgeting is a process that had its management located in the municipal office of planning until 2014. During that time, there was a manager that coordinated the process and organized it, but there was no significant follow-up process to consider the demands, delivery of projects and other kinds of post PB-cycle issues.
During 2010/2011 a study was made by the city hall in order to understand how the public power was operating in the city. This study was very important and led to some structural changes within the city hall.
In 2011 they created a new secretariat called the “Secretariat of Shared Management” that was supposed to take care of the participatory processes in the city. But it was not until 2014 that the PB process was relocated and became part of the Secretariat’s responsibilities. Before that, some issues that concerned the PB were the Planning Secretariat’s responsibility and others were taken care of by the Secretariat of Shared Management.
In 2014, because of this structural change, they created new posts and new roles in PB’s management. That is when the post of Regional Monitoring Manager was created.
It was considered a CTP by the interviewee because monitoring management had an important role as an interlocutor between the different organs of the city, the regional managers and the communities. In addition to tracking management, this person supported the secretariats and was responsible for the PB’s connection with the Government Office.
The Secretariat of Government proposed these changes at the city Hall. Besides the monitoring manager, a post to administer the management of PB’s projects was created. This person was responsible for fetching the data and facilitating the execution of projects.As a whole, the PB process has been strengthened by this change because it promoted proximity between the bodies that were concerned about PB.
Other than that, the interviewee recognized: “today we can go deeper into project’s issues. Those issues often involve five secretariats and now we can talk and solve the problems because we have at least two people whose main concern is mediation. Not that before this there were not these kinds of issues, but now we have someone who is responsible for resolving these problems and facilitating the work between everybody (...) I believe this kind of work is mainly concerned with the community, to promote an understanding of the PB process. What the management needs is to make this connection between the public and the internal institutions that are operating the PB’s projects and demands".
Often the technicians do not have the kind of experience that involves visiting communities, engaging in that reality. Sometimes, according to the interviewee: “people (inside the city hall, mostly technicians) do not have that sensitivity, however it is important to engage with the notion that we can impact on lots of lives with our work”.
As a whole, the administrative reform process was a large study in the city and it was related to different kinds of political orientation.
2009 – Beginning of the discussion about reorganization - Since the 2008 municipal election, there was a discussion about the structural changes that they needed to promote in the city hall’s structure in order to facilitate and optimize its operations.
2011 – Formalization of the Secretariat of Shared Management - In 2011 a redesign of the structure took place and the Secretariat of Shared Management was created. In the beginning they were not responsible for the whole PB process, just its organization (assemblies, voters, etc). Nowadays this Secretariat is responsible for the entire PB process and is where the PB’s projects and regional monitoring manager are located.
2014 – Creating of management posts - In 2014 the PB’s works Manager post and the Regional Monitoring manager post were created and the proximity with the population began to change the relationship between the city hall and the communities, as well as the relationship with the secretariat inside the city hall.
The study was conducted in a very convincing way, so everybody was certain about the changes that were needed in the system. As a result, the changes were well accepted inside the city hall, as stated: “Everybody knew that the organs implementing the projects and the ones who were planning the PB process did not have a direct relationship and that was something that affected the delivery of completed-projects as well as the confidence that was held in the process (both for insiders and for the community). I think we lacked dialogue with the community. People did not know how to talk to the internal structures; they did not have access to information. The changes would try to solve that kind of issue, so everybody was confident".
Nevertheless, the interviewee recalls that the communities’ representatives did not understand why they were changing the posts of the people in change of the processes and community relationships. There was distrust regarding the process because they did not gain access to information in a simple and effective way.
Therefore for them the new post was just a political excuse to hire someone new and it would not benefit them (the community) in any way.
After these initial moments, the increasing dialogue with the city structures that was promoted by the managers, the proximity between the communities and the logic behind the process led to support for the managers from the representatives, who started to engage in a different kind of relationship which was more trusting and engaged.
At first the interviewee said that she was scared to see so many projects with problems and it was a challenge to deal with all that complexity: “It is difficult to deal with the frustration of a community you work with so closely. But I did not see it in a negative way, just as a challenge. I'm sure that 20 years of experience in the PB process has given me confidence to take actions and make decisions that are gradually facilitating processes and avoiding frustration and discontent”.
Close monitoring is very interesting because the construction of a relationship with the communities directly impacts on the confidence that the population has in the PB process as well as the trust they have in the government itself: “They want an effective and rapid response, but in the public mechanism the process is long and bureaucratic. We try to get around it the best way we can, but you cannot speed up the process that much. It is important that they trust us with this”.
Another issue the interviewee noticed is the lack of community interest in the larger issues of the city: “For example... during the World Cup, the projects and the PB processes were slower because we received federal investment for the World Cup and we could not do everything at the same speed as before. There were World Cup projects that improved issues of transportation and displacement in the city, but that did not matter for the community because it meant a delay for them and I understand, they have demands for urgent projects and it's hard for people to wait. But sometimes there is this lack of a sense of collectivity”.
Transparency modified the PB process after these structural changes. As the interviewee said:
“Sometimes the public organ is afraid to expose itself, because it fears it will frustrate the wishes of the community, but everyone is more understanding when you feel that the truth will be valued, no matter who could get hurt. This posture builds collective and participatory processes. Without transparency and a commitment to the truth, there is no way to have citizen participation, there is no way to create relationships based on trust, and I think this is the strongest lesson learnt in the whole process”.
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