Municipal Participatory Budgets
The Municipal Participatory Budgets are the only spaces in Costa Rica that allow citizens to decide on the allocation of budget items. Specific items with a National Budget are assigned through the participation of the beneficiary community through the District Councils, which define the projects and works in which they will be invested. In 2016, a participatory budgeting process was carried out each year in the Municipality of Heredia, which had 6 annual cycles. Also, in 2004, the experience with local participatory budgets began in Alajuela, giving the decision on development projects and their financing to groups and local guilds. This decentralization, in a key area of municipal management, was well received. Over 5000 citizens participated in the discussions.
Institutional design
Formalization: is the innovation embedded in the constitution or legislation, in an administrative act, or not formalized at all?
Frequency: how often does the innovation take place: only once, sporadically, or is it permanent or regular?
Mode of Selection of Participants: is the innovation open to all participants, access is restricted to some kind of condition, or both methods apply?
Type of participants: those who participate are individual citizens, civil society organizations, private stakeholders or a combination of those?
Decisiveness: does the innovation takes binding, non-binding or no decision at all?
Co-governance: is there involvement of the government in the process or not?
- Formalization
- embedded in the constitution/legislation
- Frequency
- regular
- Mode of selection of participants
- open
- Type of participants
- citizens
- Decisiveness
- democratic innovation yields a non-binding decision
- Co-Governance
- yes
Means
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Ends
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