The international conference which took place in
Porto Alegre, 6-9 December 2004, aimed to gather LogoLink regional partners,
researchers and other organisations working in the field to discuss
the findings from the LogoLink research initiative on Resources, Citizen
Engagement and Democratic Local Governance which had been underway since
January 2004.
Various participants'
write-ups and conference papers were prepared for the conference.
The conference papers are listed below and can be viewed fully by clicking
on the highlighted text.
List of conference papers by region:
The
Minneapolis Neighborhood Revitalization Program: An Experiment in Empowered
Participatory Governance (2005)
Elena Fagotto and Archon Fung
The study begins by describing the history and institutional architecture
of the Minneapolis Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP). It then
describes the political dynamics between city agencies and city hall
and the neighborhoods and the office of the Neighborhood Revitalization
Program. It then goes on to describe the general outlines of participation,
deliberation, politics and resource allocation at the neighborhood level
in the NRP. Finally, it develops these general features by offering
a microanalysis of participation and planning under the NRP in five
neighborhoods that vary according to both income and diversity.
Conference
Paper
Appendix
to this study
The
Struggle for Resources: Citizen Engagement and Democratic Governance
in the Municipality of Vallegrande, Bolivia (2005)
Dr. Jordi Beneria-Surkin
Grupo Nacional de Trabajo para la Participacion (GNTP), Bolivia
This paper evaluates socioeconomic, political and fiscal outcomes of
participatory governance in the municipality of Vallegrande (Bolivia),
focusing on processes of participation in the Plan de Desarrollo Municipal
(PDM, Municipal Development Plan) and Plan Anual Operativo 2004 (POA,
Annual Operational Plan or annual budget). The paper is divided into
four sections. The first discusses research methods utilized as well
as some of the main trials and tribulations faced during the process.
The second section contextualizes the case study by providing a brief
overview of relevant theory and literature, the Bolivian policy context
and background information on Vallegrande. The third section describes
the participatory local governance processes implemented in 2003. It
examines how active participation of civil society in development of
the municipality’s PDM and 2004 POA was achieved. The fourth section
turns to an analysis of the Vallegrande experience and focus on what
has been learnt in terms of citizen engagement, power relations and
outcomes of participatory budgeting and planning processes. Finally,
the paper concludes with a summary of some keys issues related to participatory
local governance and budgeting and tries to point to some steps that
can contribute to increasing participation and citizen engagement.
Fiscal
Performance Audit: Public Record of Operations and Finance (PROOF) and
Citizens’ Participation (2005)
V.Vijayalakshmi, India
Using the PROOF campaign as a case, the paper analyses the local-level
social and political processes in civil society led citizens' participation
initiatives. The PROOF campaign is a civil society initiative in citizens'
participation in Bangalore, India. The focus of the paper is not about
the innovativeness of the campaign, or people’s participation which
they can consider as a matter of right. The focus is on the extent of
citizens' participation that can actually be achieved, and whether participation
could be transformed into a voice which expresses citizens’ concerns.
The paper examines the practices adopted by the campaign, and how the
power relations between various actors are being articulated. The paper
looks beyond disclosure to manifestation of participation, transparency
and accountability in city governance.
Citizen
Participation in Financing Local Development: The Case of The Bohol
Water Utilites, Incorporated (2005)
Rose Marie Nierras, IDS
This case research is a qualitative investigation into the nature and
dynamics of citizen participation in the fiscal spaces around resource
generation in the province of Bohol. This paper is structured in four
main sections. It begins with a description of decentralization reforms
in the Philippines, highlighting the main features of fiscal decentralization
and provisions for citizen participation. This is followed by a section
on the Bohol Joint Venture Agreement (JVA) which begins with a short
section on the social, economic and political contexts of Bohol and
then proceeds to a presentation of the main highlights of the Bohol
JVA experience. The Bohol JVA experience considered for this research
spans the specific phases of determining the strategy to privatise the
public utility, through to the adoption and implementation of this strategy,
and into the establishment and operations of the Bohol JVA project itself.
The third section of this report considers in greater detail the nature
and degree of citizen participation in the Bohol JVA throughout the
different phases. The report ends with a short section summarizing the
conclusions and outlines questions for further research.
The
Case of Vitoria da Conquista, Brazil (2005)
Zander Navarro, IDS
This paper presents a case study of the municipality of Vitória
da Conquista in Brazil. It focusses on the efforts of a new-elected
administration to implement a new policy aimed at raising revenues when
confronted with a disastrous financial situation. The first section
provides a general overview of social policies in the period following
the implementation of the new Brazilian constitution in 1988. It describes
on the one hand the pressure local governments were under to follow
strict procedures imposed by federal policies and, on the other hand,
the opportunity to innovate and experiment with new initiatives under
the enlarged space created by decentralization. The second part of this
paper consists of the case study. It describes how new innovations in
the municipality of Vitória da Conquista were only possible under
the context of decentralisation and the political possibilities opened
by democratization in Brazil at this time. Macro political changes created
the space for the local government to be creative, thus developing an
experiment that was successful and could be replicated by many Brazilian
municipalities. The new administration in this municipality tried to
broaden social participation in parallel with a new administrative procedure
structured to raise revenues through the anticipating of revenues. In
particular a revised system of collecting service taxes produced a complete
reversion of previous years, increasing the annual level of revenues,
the number of taxpayers and also materializing new opportunities to
implement policies in favour of poorer classes.
