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What was the project?
A two year funded project by the ADB, TA 6175: Making Resource
Allocation Pro Poor and Participatory in the Pacific was developed
to address budgetary and resource allocation issues at community
level. It aimed firstly to improve civil society's capacity to
engage more constructively and proactively in resource allocation
prioritization and decision making and in monitoring service
delivery. Secondly, it attempted to encourage governments in the two
pilot countries (Fiji and Vanuatu) to become more responsive to the
participation of civil society in the resource allocation process.
Project implementation took place in Fiji and Vanuatu and engaged a
total of 30 communities throughout the two year project
Why Participatory Budgeting?
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Its about people
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Its about promoting the community or individual right to
participate toward their own development
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Its about partnerships between communities, civil society and
government
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It isn’t what the literature says it is: “its as much about
empowered communities as it is about empathetic and responsive
government”
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Its about bridging the gap between people and policy
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Its about mechanisms or avenues that can help meet the general
community development needs
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Its about constructive dialogue
Summary of Work Conducted
Literature Review Training Materials
Civil Society Workshops Community Workshops
Community Revisits Scale-up Plan Outreach Seminars
Community Governance Awareness Workshops for Government officials
and Community Leaders
Outcomes and Lessons Learnt/Experience and Learning Analyses
Outputs
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30
Community Action Plans (CAPs)
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Community
Information Handbook (Fiji
handbook,
Vanuatu handbook)
pdf doc size is
19M - best to download
by right-clicking on the link and choose "Save Target As")
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Advocacy
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Community
Government Engagement: 'Radio in a suitcase' (Femlink) and National
radio in Vanuatu
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Documentary Resources (Plays and Theatre performances (DVD) and
Documentary on Participatory Budgeting (DVD))
If you have difficulty in downloading the above files,
please send a request to
admin@fspi.org.fj for copies in CD.
Outcomes
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Empowered
and self-reliant communities
Community capacity built to understand how government works and
how to work with government through participatory assessment, planning
and budgeting workshops. Communities now have community action plans,
information and plans to address their priorities.
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Government-Community
relations built with empathetic government officers
National and Local government officers committed to working with
communities and community development organizations.
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Cadre
of Community Trainers in 30 communities
Community representatives were identified and selected for training.
They have been trained in participatory budgeting and were used
as resource people for work with their own communities. This work
included the pilot testing of the manual in their community, community
radio broadcasts, community engagement workshops and participatory
budgeting PLAs.
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Civil
Society Participatory Budgeting capacity built
A participatory budgeting workshop was conducted in each country
with civil society groups including women and youth. It aimed to
empower them to engage with government via the participatory budgeting
process.
Lessons Learned
Community
Relevance
Difficulty was experienced by the communities in linking PB processes
to their daily lives. Engagement with government is secondary in comparison
to daily bread and butter issues like income and employment, putting
food on the table and overall survival. The challenge then for community
developers is to not so much the question of what engagement processes
need to be carried out, but is a question of how the process is to
be carried out?
Capacity
and Status of primary participating stakeholders
Clarity is needed on who the participating parties are to be (individuals,
formal or informal communities, NGOs, etc.) and when they are to participate
(budget formulation stages and in what capacity) What resources, information
or skills must disadvantaged citizens (poor people in particular)
have in order to be included in one or all aspects of the budgeting
process? Practice from the project proved that in order for people
to obtain an exclusionary role in the PB process, they must be fairly
well respected in their communities, be well educated, informed, pro-active
and be willing and confident towards participatory engagement initiatives.
This includes women and young people.
Strengthening
existing knowledge
Efforts to integrate PB must be built on previous or existing activities
or knowledge. Training is aimed mostly at enhancing capacity, particularly
in governance/engagement issues rather than providing completely new
skills. This focus on enhancing what the participants actually "have"
rather than focusing on what they "have not" is more likely
to work. This pre-existing knowledge base and interest in the area
is important to note in the development of CAPs during PLAs. The activity
is then more likely to already fit into a cultural scheme, and hence
unlikely to clash with existing norms or traditions.
Community
- Government Linkages
Both countries lack clear, community-friendly participatory avenues
in government institutions at both local and government levels towards
better allocation and consumption of resources. This is exacerbated
by lack of proper skills and financial support to facilitate a more
inclusive approach to policy from a government that must on top of
this, be pro-active, at both local and national levels.
Scale
- Up Plan
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Phase
2 - will expand where appropriate the project scope and objectives.
The expansion will include the review, refinement and translation
of resources and materials, institutionalization of participatory
budgeting methodology, development of effective methods to create
empathy and continued empowerment of communities.
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