This is a CTP of initiative: Participatory Budgeting Fortaleza (Brazil)
This CTP relates to a running out of funds to the Participatory Budget (PB) in the city of Fortaleza in 2006, the second year of the PB in the city. The PB process was initiated and then paralyzed for lack of financial resources but also for lack of planning so that the consultation of the population on their demands had limits or parameters set in the budget. This episode provoked a crisis, both in the city hall, and in relations with the population and social movements, which questioned the legitimacy of the process, isolating its technicians and provoking a great confusion.
The years of 2005 and 2006 were the first two years of a leftist government in this city since the dictatorship and also the first two years of the Participatory Budget of Fortaleza: "It was the people in power". During these years, two full cycles of PB were performed. A cycle refers to the round of planned assemblies and meetings with the public ran by the city hall, in the PB methodology, which last approximately 10 months each. Since the first cycle a list of people's demands for public spending was created. But the demands were not met from one year to another.
Already in 2006, when the second cycle began and when the population was once again invited to participate, there was discouragement and resistance of participation. The motivation was over and the technicians of the city hall felt the PB process negative effects: "For me it was a failure of the government... Before it is necessary to work the idea of ??budget, its periodicity, what is the function of the municipality? How many resources are there? It has to be a transparent and training process".
The demands have not been implemented because there was an enormous disproportion between the list of demands and the budget. There were more demands than resources to execute them. Thus, in 2006 the population declined the invitation under two main claims. The first is that they had already asked for everything that they needed and second, what they had requested had not yet been delivered. However with both arguments the result was the same: they did not want to participate again in a new PB cycle, "There is a flaw in the process and the PB loses strength due to this flaw".
In older PB processes in Brazil the list of demands is performed accompanied by a process of prioritization and within a spending limit established by the city: "This has created a huge expectation (...) If the city does all this it is the beginning of the revolution! This is historic in the traditional leftist governments, they always generate a huge expectation, they (the population) do not have the notion that the budget is limited and they think they can ask for everything".
Another problem pointed out as one of the causes of PB emptied was a "mistake of government". Within the municipal government, there were people from social movements occupying the Coordination of Social Segments of the social movements (a few years later these coordinators came together to form the Secretariat of Human Rights). These coordinators were given the demands of the movements directly, without having to go through the PB. In 2006, the social movements stopped attending the PB and negotiating their demands directly with the city hall: "It is what we know as a lobby. It has caused many problems as well as a distrust in the process”.
With the emptied, the coordination of PB realized that it needed to take account of what it had done and give transparency to the reasons why many of the demands were not carried out. In 2006 and 2007 the PB Fortaleza became accountable and established a cycle of trainings in order to give transparency to the achievements.
In relation to direct negotiations between the social movements and the mayor's office, they were not extended. By 2012, when there were more changes to the municipal government, the social movements had an exclusive channel to deal with the city and never returned to the PB: "The organized movements with a leftist tradition had communication with the mayor's office or with the Coordination. It is a mistake that you cannot make in a public participation policy".
It was the first time there was a leftist government in the city and as soon as it took office, the government established the PB in Fortaleza. The CTP had the co-production of the city hall, the elected mayor who chose his secretariats and coordinators and the PB team, who did not master the methodology of representation of organized social movements.
The population is the main actor of the PB, and was not properly oriented in the process.
In the first two years of government there was no political or methodological maturity regarding the implementation of the PB; in this period there was also no preparation (phase of educational/training assemblies, working on the availability of resources).
The main related events are:
Janeiro 2005 - A new government starts – The Workers Party took office in the municipal government and the PB in Fortaleza was implemented in a format that lasted until 2008, in which the prioritization of demands in terms of resources was not adopted.
March 2006 - There is a gap between demands and budget limit - The government perceived the gap between the demands and the budget limit. The population was dissatisfied with the results (or with the lack of results) of the PB 2005 cycle.
April 2007 - The cycle of accountability begins - A cycle of accountability began in 51 involved neighborhoods. “We invested 3 to 4 months of assemblies in each neighborhood”.
March 2008 - Prioritize demands – There was acknowledgement of the need to prioritize demands, but the PB format was still the same. A follow-up coordination of works and services was created. "Here we realized that we had to prioritize at the beginning after the list was completed and not the other way around.”
Março 2009 – Changes the methodology in the PB cycle. Budget priority implementation which meant that there was a change in the PB format which now considered methodologically the budget limit and the priority of demands in the assemblies.
Março 2010 – Changes in the format - With a more mature process, the PB was resumed. Changes to the general coordination of the PB: "We had to change all the format, including giving visibility to what had been done before. As our OP was very large and there was a problem in giving visibility, people did not know what the PB did for the city (...) To work with budget with the population we needed to make the priorities of the budget clear, we used the parallel of the family budget to explain that the city hall did not have a budget for everything (...) the role of the population is demanding, wanting more, showing what's wrong, wanting to improve, to question, this is the confrontation. The role of the State is another, it is of guardianship, 'I collect resources through taxes and I have to turn this into goods for the population'. So in any process of direct participation, you have to put these two interests in the balance".
There are three mentioned contestations.
The first concerns the city hall itself and the work with social segments: "At first there was some resistance to work with the segments; groups that had been historically excluded, gender, race, ethnicity, disability, LGBTT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual and Transgender). Imagine making a personal selection aligned with these segments. It was a process of formation. We hired a hundred people at once, 20 trainees at once; it was a lot of work. "This obstacle was overcome with the training of employees by their own leaders of the PB process.
By the time this government took office, there was political clarity regarding the need for participation, but in the interviewee's words the expectation was "the people in power". They did not foresee the events that led to the emptying right in the second year of the process.
"The process needed to mature. We did not imagine dissatisfaction. We had the principles of participation, it had to be universal and we had political clarity regarding the process. We had many meetings, for example. If there was a neighborhood that was divided by a road, we made an assembly on one side and then the other. We had such clarity that participation had to be universal, transparent, the methodology had to be clear, the result had to be immediate... it was political maturity. But the rest we were facing as we went”.
The learning was the development of the methodology and the acknowledgement of the difficulties of political activities. The process of popular participation matured, the attitude of the city government to the population, transparency and training process: "Either the city hall matured, or the problems would continue to exist".
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