Participatory Budgeting

In addition to the fixed costs and multi-annual projects already approved at an institutional level, local governments can assign each year a part of the city budget to other projects that may derive from proposals sent directly by its citizens. "Participatory Budgeting" is a digital tool that allows citizens to be actively involved in the decisions that municipalities initiate in order to develop the city in which they live.

The whole process is based on a series of steps that follow a certain structure: the submission of projects by the citizens, the analysis and projects review by the authorities, the finalization of the list of proposals, the public vote and the designation of the winning projects. At the same time, each city hall can organize these steps according to its own regulations and decisions once they become the admin of the solution.

Through this project, we simplify the mechanisms through which the community can contribute with opinions and suggestions regarding the local budget by offering clear and easily explained information, both in terms of impact and context. The solution is already a redeployment and customization to fit the local legislation of Consul, an open source project designed by the Consul Foundation together with the municipality of Madrid and replicated in hundreds of cities around the world. This is proof of the immense potential of reusability among local administrations across the European Union and the world at large when it comes to digital infrastructure.