Publication: Case Study 2 - Porto Alegre, Brazil : Participatory Approaches in Budgeting and Public Expenditure Management
Date
2003-03
ISSN
Published
2003-03
Author(s)
World Bank
Abstract
Run by dictators for over 20 years
(1964-1985), Brazil only had a democratic constitution
promulgated in 1998 that allowed an already active civil
society to function more freely. A country of 156 million,
Brazil has been dubbed one of the most unequal, with one of
the largest numbers of poor people among comparable
middle-income countries. After the end of dictatorship in
1998, people who had earlier opposed dictatorships formed
the Workers Party (PT) to seriously take up the agenda of
deepening democracy through "popular
administration" of government. Having won several
municipal elections in 1989, including Sao Paolo with over
10 million people, the PT began a creative experiment of
engaging a wide spectrum of people to formulate city
budgets. The Porto Alegre case has, in particular, having
been nominated by the 1996 UN Summit on Human Settlements in
Istanbul as an exemplary 'urban innovation', stood
out for demonstrating an efficient practice of democratic
resource management. The largest industrial city in Rio
Grande do Sul with 1.3 million inhabitants, Porto Alegre has
a local economy worth over US$ 7 billion, and for long has
had a reputation for hosting a progressive civil society led
by intellectuals and labor unions experienced in mobilizing
people to partake in public life, including opposing authoritarianism.
Citation
“World Bank. 2003. Case Study 2 - Porto Alegre, Brazil : Participatory Approaches in Budgeting and Public Expenditure Management. Social Development Notes; No. 71. © Washington, DC. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/2be63c04-6276-5cdd-8f40-5a048d31c12f License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”