Participatory Budgeting

What is Participatory Budgeting?

Participatory budgeting, or PB as its more commonly known, is a recognised process that allows local people to decide how money is spent within their city or local community. It is used all over the world, including other parts of Northern Ireland, to improve civic participation and give people a voice in the decisions that affect them.

PB exercises vary in size and scope, but they all follow the same process:

Money is allocated to address a specific issue or local need.
Ideas on how to address that need are generated.
Local people vote for the project ideas they think will have the greatest impact.
The projects with the most votes get funded.
Once the projects have been delivered, each project reports back to their community, showcasing what they did and the difference they made. This is usually done at a celebration event.

In many PB exercises residents, community groups and other organisations are invited to put forward their ideas and projects for how to address that need. Only the best projects, as voted for by the local community, get funded.

In some cases, a local council or similar organisation provide a list of projects for communities to choose from or invite communities to prioritise how an allocated budget should be spent. Voting can be done in-person at a special event or through an online voting process.

Why do PB?

To help Belfast get started on the PB journey, the Active Belfast Partnership through the Belfast Health Development Unit took forward the first PB process in Belfast. The theme of this first test PB project was “Move more and eat well – to feel better” as part of this test and pilot the BHDU developed the Your Say Belfast PB Hub (Participatory Budgeting | Your say Belfast) where you will find other PB programmes taking place across the city and a video explaining PB.

Click on the tiles below for information Making Life Better Together PB Programmes

Pilot

Programme 2

Live Programme