The Guardian has come up with an interesting piece on Porto Alegre’s participatory budgeting, highlighting some of the benefits (well-known to some) of the process:
The effects have been overwhelmingly positive. Within seven years, the percentage of locals with access to sewers doubled from 46 to 95. The rate of roadbuilding, particularly in the favelas, rose five-fold. Tax evasion fell, as people saw what their money was being spent on.
Read the full article here.
From the InSTEDD iLab Latin America blog
The main idea behind this project was to create a simple, low cost way to allow the youth living in the favelas to digitally map the socio-environmental risk factors that threatened their communities. We needed to do it in a way that would be publicly visIble so that the government and the public could be aware and respond.
Below a video on the first stage of the initiative
Definitely something to follow up on. It would be interesting to find out more about how they are planning to asses the impact of the initiative. In my very limited experience, most mapping initiatives are exciting to see but fail to show a link between outputs (e.g. maps) and tangible outcomes (i.e. impact). Let’s hope this initiative is one of the exceptions.
DemocracySpot 