Participatory budgets move forward: shared economic decisions

22/03/2021 - 13:22

Participatory Budgets. For the first time ever, Barcelona residents will decide what neighbourhood projects they want to invest €30 million in, after a year in which the participative process was halted due to the pandemic.

“Who better than local residents to decide what their neighbourhood needs?”. The advert for Barcelona’s participatory budgets was presented under this slogan in February 2020. 

For the first time, city residents can make decisions,that directly affect part of the municipal investment in the city’s neighbourhoods, by voting for projects presented by local residents or Barcelona organisations which tackle specific needs in a neighbourhood or in an entire district.

The experience was first tested in the Eixample and in the Gràcia neighbourhood at the end of 2016, culminating in the execution of a dozen of the most voted projects from 2017 onwards.

This time, the process has been more complicated. Just a month after it started, the pandemic arrived, and the state of alert made it necessary to stop the first phase of project presentation and in-person debates, although it was possible to present projects in a digital format on decidim.barcelona until 22 May.

However, it will finally be possible to resume the participatory budgets, after rescheduling the process and modifying the assigned budget to make it sustainable in terms of the new economic and social reality and this term of office (the planned €75 million have been reduced to €30 million, to be divided among the 10 districts). The process was therefore resumed in March 2021 and local residents will be able to vote for the finalist projects in June.

Projects with no sell-by date

“We were concerned. As we began this participative process before Covid-19, we didn’t ’know if the presented projects would make sense after the pandemic, but we soon realised that most of them propose improvements to, and the pacifying of, public areas, which is currently one of the City Councils priorities”, explains Gerard Lillo, a specialist at Barcelona City Council’s Directorate of Active Democracy.

There was a notable amount of citizen participation in the first phase of the participatory budgets. In spite of all the difficulties caused by the Covid-19 health crisis, a total of 1,980 projects were presented through the decidim.barcelona platform.

825 of them were approved after a viability assessment, which was exclusively technical in nature, had been carried out. This evaluation ensures that the projects are compatible with the municipal action plan, that they are economically viable and that they do not contradict any municipal regulation, among other technical criteria.

The underlying themes of the 825 projects are very varied, but they all have one thing in common: they all concern communities and neighbourhoods. Around 20% of them propose the pacifying and remodelling of streets, 13% aim to improve the city’s green areas, 10% are based on improving educational facilities and the areas surrounding schools, 9% suggest actions to renovate or create sports facilities and 8% are related to the transformation of bicycle lane networks and mobility.

A good number of these projects have come out of the in-person debate sessions that were held in the districts before the state of alarm. Unfortunately, it has not been possible to resume these forums and continue the process and ensure that the projects can be carried out within the 2021-2023 period, states Lillo.

Montse Morera, the Vice President of the Municipal Council Assembly and a member of the Monitoring Committee for the Participatory Budget Process, is glad that, in spite of all the difficulties and the reduced budget, the project is still moving forward. “It was vital that the extraordinary effort made voluntarily by a lot of city residents wasn’t just put in a drawer and forgotten about”.

“What’s ”more, continued Morera, “citizen participation in the City Council’s economic decisions is a historic demand of the local-resident movement, and this process can be very exciting for local residents.

The path towards the final vote

From 22 March, the process will continue with the support phase: Any city resident registered in Barcelona who is aged 14 or over can vote online for the projects they consider to be the most important, through the decidim.barcelona platform. They can choose a minimum of two and a maximum of ten projects from any of the districts.

The twenty projects in each district that garner most support will be considered as priorities and will go on to a consolidation phase before the final vote. “In this phase, there will be online meetings among the people or organisations promoting the projects and the municipal services responsible for consolidating the proposals. For example, if a street has to be remodelled: which exact section is involved? What technical conditioning factors must be ensured?, What will the definitive budget be? How should the project be carried out?” explains Gerard Lillo.

“There has been a good response: the social networks are alive with the various promoters of initiatives, requesting support for their projects. I encourage the general public to go on the Decidim website and find out about the various projects being presented, and then choose the ones they prefer”, says Montse Morera.

Lillo stresses that a lot of interested people are active on their social networks and in their communities, creating Telegram or Whatsapp groups to garner support for their initiatives”.

The process will culminate in a final vote in June, when every city resident will be able to vote on which projects they want to be carried out, in a maximum of 2 districts: the one in which they are registered residents and another of their choice.

“Although the voting will be online through the decidim.barcelona website”, explains the Active Democracy Directorate specialist, “there will be two municipal facilities in each district offering voter support, where there is an exhibition with panels featuring the twenty projects city residents can vote for in the district and support personnel to help people who need to vote on Decidim”.

Do you want to take part in the participatory budgets and have a direct influence on which projects will be carried out in your neighbourhood or district?

Go to www.decidim.barcelona.