Local Government
1
Large Cities
0
Capital Cities
1
Regional or State Governments
0
National Government
0
Other Institutions
0
Local Government
1
Large Cities
0
Capital Cities
1
Regional or State Governments
0
National Government
0
Other Institutions
0
Community
Capital
Panama City
Population
4 176 870
Language
Spanish
Currency
Balboa/US Dollar
Indexes
Democracy
45
Flawed Democracy
Democracy
Democracy
45
Flawed Democracy
Democracy
Corruption Perception
93/180
Corruption Perception
Corruption Perception
93/180
Corruption Perception
Human Development
66
High
Human Development
Human Development
66
High
Human Development
World Happiness
31/156
World Happiness
World Happiness
31/156
World Happiness
Legislation Regarding the Regulation of Participatory Budgeting Experiences
Law 37 of 2009
Modified by the Law 66 of 2015 that promotes citizen participation regarding the formulation of the Annual Plan of Infrastructure and Investments, that holds the projects that will be financed with the contributions of the transfer of the property taxes. This plan will be elaborated based on the needs identified by the major, along with the local authorities and the participation of the communities. The art.
136C indicates that “In the scope of planning, programming, investments budgets, evaluation and decentralization of territorial public management, the following mechanisms must be applied: Plebiscite, Referendum, Public Hearing, Social Audit, Participatory Budgeting, Open Town Halls, Popular Initiative, Citizen Consultation, Consultative Council, Citizen Collaboration, Regional congresses. The state, at its different levels of government, must develop these spaces and mechanisms to promote citizen participation. The methodology will be designed and established by an internal regulation. Taking into consideration what has been established in the legal regime regarding participation, in the context of decentralization; municipalities can acquire as a consultation procedure any of the mentioned mechanisms.
Outstanding Innovation
The main innovation in Portuguese PB processes regards to the fact that, presently, there are three different levels of governance implementing it: national, regional and local.
It started in 2002 at local level, incremented by municipalities and parishes. In the following years there was a considerable increase in the number of local PB and, in 2017, a scale up to national took place, led by the Portuguese Government. At this point three national processes emerged (the National, the Youth and the School PB). These three were extended to all the Portuguese territory since the mainland until the islands of Azores and Madeira and demand some articulation from the national cabinet with local agents as schools, municipalities and other local organizations.
The third level takes us to the regional scale. The Portuguese islands of Azores and Madeira are ruled by autonomous governments and, by their own resolution each one must increment a PB process regarding its region. In the Portuguese governmental context this means that all the levels of governance are implementing its own PB process and inclusively those at national and regional level are established by legislation.
Principal Tendencies Detected
Regular experiences and democratic innovation yield a binding decision.
Other Information
The Municipal Participatory Budget is a citizen exercise for the concerted identification of themes and projects of common interest to be executed by the local public administration. Its objective is to facilitate citizen participation and integration as well as to achieve a better knowledge of the conditions, needs and potential of the territory, so that the local government makes the best possible use of its resources. Individuals from the communities aged 14 years.
