Colombia

Participatory Planning and Budgeting are eminently local processes, whether at the departmental or municipal level, which are set out in national regulations, specifically in Law 152 of 1994, Law 1551 of 2012 and Law 1757 of 2015. There have been no regulatory modifications in relation to what was reported the previous edition of the Atlas.

Law 152 of 1994 “By which the Organic Law of the Development Plan is established” defines the contents of the development plans; the times for their presentation, discussion and approval; and creates the National Planning Council and the territorial planning councils, citizen participation body’s that must issue a concept on the development plans before their presentation in Congress, departmental assembly or municipal council, and also make annual follow-up reports.

Regarding the Participatory Budgeting, Law 1551 of 2012 “By which rules are dictated to modernize the organization and the operation of the municipalities” establishes that the Municipal or District Council will be able to constitute, in order to support the social investment in the communes and localities, a Participatory Budgeting process that allows citizens to deliberate and decide on the allocation of a percentage of the municipal budget, through the JALs, in their respective communes, townships and localities, observing the national and municipal rules and regulations that rule the exercise of planning, budgeting and contracting, in accordance with the Municipal Development Plan (art. 40).

Law 1757 of 2015 “By which agreements are established regarding promotion and protection of the entitlement to participatory democracy. It proposes a definition of Participatory Budgeting, its object, purpose and monitoring mechanisms (arts. 90  93). It also states that the governments of the territorial entities stipulated in the Constitution and in the law might carry out the Participatory Budgeting practices, in which the allocation of a percentage of municipal income is designated in a participatory manner, which will by defined autonomously by the corresponding authorities, in accordance with the objectives and goals of the Development Plan (Art. 100).

It is important to emphasize that the reform of Law 152 of 1994 has not been done as indicated in numeral 2.2.6 of the Final Agreement for the End of Conflict and the Construction of a Stable and Lasting Peace, which highlighted five important issues in order to improve the promotion of participation in Participatory Planning and Participatory Budgeting.

1. Revision of the functions and creation of the Territorial Planning Councils;
2. To provide technical assistance to municipal y departmental authorities that require it for the participatory designing of several planning tools;
3. Comprehensive and participatory review of the participation systems in the planning processes;
4. Strengthen institutional designs and methodology in order to facilitate citizen participation and ensure its effectiveness in the formulation of social public policies;
5. Strengthen and promote the implementation of Gender sensitive Participatory Budgeting and women’s rights at the local level in order to:

   a. Promote the participation of men and women in the prioritization of a part of the investment budget, in such a way that it reflects the conclusions of the participatory planning exercise;

   b. Incentive the formulation and execution Participatory Budgeting practices;

   c. Promote monitoring and accountability mechanisms for Participatory Budgeting exercises [pp. 49 - 50].

Despite the delays in the implementation of the Final Peace Agreement, the main innovation implemented during 2019 in the country had to do with one of its points: the solution to the problem of illicit drugs. The Final Agreement stated that the problem of illicit drugs must be confronted “by presenting alternatives that lead to improving the conditions of well-being and good living of the communities -men and women- in the territories affected by illicit crops, that addresses consumption with a focus on public health; and that intensifies the fight against criminal organizations dedicated to drug trafficking, including related activities such as illicit finances, money laundering, trafficking in precursors, and the fight against corruption, dismantling the entire drug trafficking value chain”.

The Agreement established measures related to each of the stages of the drug trafficking chain: production and commercialization of narcotics; prevention of consumption and public health; and, in relation to production, set out the guidelines of the Comprehensive National Program for the Substitution of Illicitly Use of Crops (PNIS), a plan attached to the National Programs for Comprehensive Rural Reform.

This vision was embraced by Decree Law 896 of 2017 that established the PNIS and the comprehensive community and municipal alternative development and substitution plans (PISDA), a participatory planning tool that was supposed to incorporate the following components:

1. Plans for immediate attention and development of productive projects (PAI);
2. Social infrastructure projects of rapid execution;
3. Sustainability and environmental recovery component;
4. Property plans;
5. Plans for remote areas with low population;
6. Timelines, targets and indicators.

It is important to note that the elaboration of this decree did not include the participation of the communities or cultivators’ organizations.

The implementation of the PISDA considered the configuration of Participatory Budgeting committees in which, through an assembly methodology, community leaders, farmers, and other social actors indicated agreements and prioritized investments to promote the development of their territories and eradicate crops of illicit use. However, the change in the national government and a shift in the focus of anti-drug policy frustrated this process.

PB in Colombia started as a departmental process in the mid- 1990s, in Nariño, which is inspired by the experience of Brazil and associated it with some long-standing participatory exercises known as “Mingas por la Pastusidad”. The city of Medellín also took as a reference the Porto Alegre initiative but it mutated into a dynamic strongly led by the local government and with dangerous scenarios of co-optation by illegal actors.

Bogotá has experimented unsuccessfully with the implementation of several models, between 2008 and 2014 there was an exchange about different scenarios with experts from Málaga and other Spanish cities. More recently, a PB pilot with children and adolescents in the Department of Risaralda was inspired by learnings from other countries that have implemented these types of processes.

Since the National Network of Local Planning and Participatory Budgeting we have elaborated proposals for the reform of Law 152 of 1994 that include a design of National PB based on the experience of Portugal. However, this reform has not yet materialized.

The Pasto experience has been maintained despite the changes in government and is being systematized and replicated. The one in Medellín has been used as a reference for other municipalities in the department of Antioquia and cities in the Eje Cafetero.

1. PB have been suspended: 0%
2. PB continued to function normally: 0%
3. PB have undergone changes/adaptations: 100%

2020 is a year of transition for local governments in Colombia, which began their mandate on January 1. While there is a great deal of wagering in relation to Participatory Budgeting, the outbreak of COVID-19 and the consequences of measures to mitigate it delayed the approval of development plans, and consequently participatory planning and budgeting exercises. In general terms, changes have been seen in the issues on which Participatory Budgeting practices are implemented, with a significant increase in initiatives related to income generation and, to a lesser extent, health-related issues. In relation to procedures, the use of information and communication technologies has begun to be expanded. Most of the exercises identified are still in the discussion phase.

It is necessary to contextualize the situation of Participatory Budgeting in the country in relation to a general decline in citizen participation. The implementation of the Final Agreement has advanced unevenly and has slowed down during the administration of Iván Duque, who understands peacebuilding as a government program and not as a state policy, ignoring the binding constitutional character of the Peace Agreement. It tries to redirect the obligations of the Peace Agreement, alleging that it has a wide margin of action, undoing the mechanisms foreseen in it and creating new ones, seeking to impose a reduced approach of peace, limited to the armament abandonment and the demobilization of ex-combatants, with an almost exclusively administrative and financial view of the execution of the Agreement, justifying the difficulties and delays in the implementation by an allegedly poor institutional design and poor prediction of the costs of peace policies.

The situation of participation in the implementation is not much better, most participatory tasks have not advanced significantly and the Agreement’s potential for transformation and democratic opening has been put at risk.

The possibilities from the local level, with the new governments that include approaches to citizen participation and Participatory Budgeting are a good sign but may be truncated by a shift in priorities and a decrease in the importance of participatory processes regarding the control of the pandemic and in the reactivation and recovery measures.