Participatory Budgeting: Citizen participation for better public policies

In the last two decades, Latin American countries have implemented participatory budgeting (PB) as a way to incorporate citizen perspective into budget designation, in order to increase public policies’ impact, enhance budget transparency and comply with citizens’ right to participate in their own governance. The Latin American experience shows that PB can achieve these impacts, but that certain conditions make success more likely. This brief analyses the region’s PB experiences and outcomes, and the factors underpinning success, all with an eye towards offering useful lessons for South Asian and Sub-Saharan African development actors.