Local Government
17
Large Cities
4
Capital Cities
6
Regional or State Governments
1
National Government
0
Other Institutions
0
Local Government
17
Large Cities
4
Capital Cities
6
Regional or State Governments
1
National Government
0
Other Institutions
0
Community
Capital
Mexico City
Population
126 190 790
Language
Spanish
Currency
Peso
Indexes
Democracy
71
Flawed Democracy
Democracy
Democracy
71
Flawed Democracy
Democracy
Corruption Perception
138/180
Corruption Perception
Corruption Perception
138/180
Corruption Perception
Human Development
74
High
Human Development
Human Development
74
High
Human Development
World Happiness
23/156
World Happiness
World Happiness
23/156
World Happiness
Legislation Regarding the Regulation of Participatory Budgeting Experiences
There are no regulations about Participatory Budgeting at the national level. However, there are 10 states legislated, including Mexico City (Beltrán, 2019), some examples are: Puebla, Jalisco y Ciudad de México. In other states, there are law initiatives being discussed at the moment and in Mexico City an update of the law is being debated.
Outstanding Innovation
The municipality of San Pedro Garza García in the state of Nuevo León, a digital platform was created in order to present projects and to vote them. This initiative it’s called San Pedro Decide. The main innovation concerns to the digital platform used in the municipality of San Pedro García, Nuevo León. The portal was created in order to upload, get to know and comment on the proposals in a very didactic and simple way. In it there is a guide that explains to citizens how to present projects, examples of proposals with their respective budgets, as well as a link to get in touch with an urban advisor in order to make a proposal.
Within the new regulation of participation of the municipality, civil society organizations were included as an area in which the Participatory Budget can be carried out, which represents the creation of more specialized projects.
Principal Tendencies Detected
There is an increase in the number of municipal governments that promote PB in order to identify projects to finance. Nowadays more and more states have citizen participation laws that recognized PB processes. Some cases such as Querétaro have started a pilot program (in three neighborhoods) before proceeding to implement it in a bigger scale.
Other Information
The culture of citizen participation is not rooted in Mexico, the percentages of participation in Participatory Budgeting processes tend to be very low in the presentation of projects phase as well as in the voting phase. Promoting Participatory Budgeting experiences is not included in the political agenda of the country at any level, but there are a few exceptions, such as the initiative of San Pedro Garza in the state of Nuevo León. Also, even though in Mexico City it’s only a single exercise (organized by the Electoral Institute) the responsibility of the projects falls into the 16 municipalities that conforms it.
