uilding on the Maseru Pan African Ministers Conference on Local Government and the Harare Regional Workshop on Participatory Budgeting, the World Bank’s Social Development Department is collaborating with the World Bank Institute and key international donors and African institutions to organize a High Level Conference on Participatory Budgeting in Africa. Partners include the Swiss Development Cooperation, UN-HABITAT, the Municipal Development Partnership for Eastern and Southern Africa (MDPESA), the Human Resources Research Council (of South Africa), and the Senegal based NGO, ENDA. The conference is scheduled to take place in October 2007.

The conference aims to bring together state-of-the art knowledge and experiences in participatory budgeting, and help key instructional practitioners to share experiences and hone in their skills. The conference will be designed as a process of learning, with systematic follow up, rather than a one-off event. The conference is part of an effort to support national institutions to share knowledge and contribute skills to promote participatory governance in Africa.

 The objectives of the conference are, therefore: 

a)   to promote cross fertilization of knowledge and experiences among institutions promoting participatory governance in the different African countries.

b)   to share latest progress on participatory budgeting in Africa and internationally, highlighting innovations, trends and challenges opportunities for enhancing local governance; and

c)   to increase practitioners’ knowledge and skills in key conceptual and operational dimensions of participatory budgeting;

The conference is the first of an initial series of two, and will focus predominantly on Anglophone African countries. Its main audience will be key staff (project managers, task leaders, capacity development coordinators) of African institutions (national and sub national government, CSOs, think-tanks), in the Region, supporting decentralization and public participation in local government budgeting.

The event will draw together some 40 participants who are interested to share their experience and learn from peers. Priority will be given to those institutions in the Region that have incorporated or plan to incorporate participatory budgeting into their operations.

The event will build significantly upon the knowledge of PB in Africa. It will have key presentations and highly interactive panels, with break-out small group sessions. It will encourage participants to share their knowledge, experiences and ideas. There will be a general overview paper on emerging practices in participatory budgeting/governance, which will set the context. Key resource people will present papers analyzing country-specific experiences in participatory budgeting/ governance, and experienced specialists will conduct sessions on concepts, approaches and methodologies of participatory budgeting.

Through facilitated, small group-based brainstorming, participants will identify the key issues in participatory budgeting and governance in Africa and discuss a range of topics, which could include the following:

·      What enabling environment is required at both central and local government levels to support and sustain participation of communities in budget work?

·      What are the lessons learnt from context-specific factors which support or hinder participatory processes in decentralized governance in Africa?

·      What are some of the tested approaches to capacity building in Africa, and how can they be applied to strengthen capacities for participatory budgeting and governance?

·      What would central governments, local governments, and civil society wish to see done to enhance participatory governance and budgeting?