| Participatory Budgeting is broadly defined as a mechanism or process through which citizens participate directly in the different phases of the budget formulation, decision making, and monitoring of budget execution. Public budgeting can be instrumental in increasing public expenditure transparency and in improving budget targeting. Since it is a useful vehicle to promote civic engagement and social learning, public budgeting has been referred to as an effective “School of Citizenship.”
Participatory budgeting’ has been defined as a process in which a range of stakeholders debate, analyze, probe and monitor decisions about public expenditure and investment. The stakeholders can include the public, poor and vulnerable groups including women, organized civil society, the private sector, representative assemblies or parliament, and donors.’ ( World Bank, n.d.) In general, ‘participatory budgeting’ can take place at three levels:
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Budget formulation and analysis: citizens either determine their own priorities or hold the government accountable for previously agreed upon priorities concerning resource allocations;
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Expenditure monitoring and tracking: citizens monitor expenditure to evaluate consistency between allocation and expenditure and the flow of funds to the agencies responsible for the delivery of services
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Monitoring public service delivery: citizens monitor the quality of publicly provided goods and services and their impact as well as links of these to the budget.
Participatory Expenditure Tracking Surveys (PETS)
Participatory expenditure tracking survey is a quantitative survey of the supply side of public services. The unit of observation is typically a service facility and/or local government rather than a household or an enterprise. The survey collects information on facility characteristics, financial flows, outputs (services delivered), accountability arrangements, etc. PETS, as quantitative exercises separate from, but complementary to qualitative surveys on the perception of consumers on service delivery, have been found to be very influential in highlighting the use and abuse of public money.
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