Participatory Budgeting Knowledge and Action Support Facility for Africa (PBKASF)

Since 1998, Municipal Development Partnership for Eastern and Southern Africa (MDP-ESA) and the World Bank Institute (WBI) have worked together on raising awareness and exchange of information on participatory budgeting. In Africa, a network of institutions has been established to support the initiative. These include: ANUMI (Abidjan), IAGU (Dakar), LGFC (Kampala), and Ilala Municipal Council in Tanzania.

The Facility

In 2005 MDP-ESA in partnership with the World Bank Institute's Community Empowerment and Social Inclusion Program (CESI), the Bank's Social Development Department (SDV) and the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network to launch a Regional Participatory Budgeting Knowledge and Action Support Centre for Africa.

Initiated a process to establish a Participatory Budgeting Knowledge and Action Support Facility for Africa. The need to establish the Africa Facility arose from the international demand for learning about and implementing participatory budgeting by low-income countries. A similar facility has been established for the Latin America and Caribbean Region at the International Centre for Urban management (CIGU) in Ecuador. MDP-ESA and CIGU will collaborate closely to promote cross regional knowledge sharing where possible drawing from, and involving other regional networks.

The overall objective of the facility is to enhance governance and accountability mechanisms by means of empowering citizens, particularly the poor to actively participate in the formulation, execution and evaluation of public policies and budgets.

Objectives

The specific objectives of the Facility are:

1. To enhance awareness regarding the potentials of participatory budgeting in deepening democracy and strengthening decentralisation.
   
2. To share materials and experiences on participatory budgeting, translate materials into the other respective regional languages, and feed a quarter yearly newsletter; and
   
3. Facilitate knowledge exchange between Regional Centres, other interested institutions, and virtual networks through a common web page or Virtual Learning Environment and a Global Virtual Help Desk
   
4. To support capacity building and networking regarding participatory budgeting in areas of decision making, implementing, monitoring and evaluation.

To achieve these objectives, MDP-ESA seeks to support local authorities, initiatives and networks while at the same time maintaining close working relations with various international organisations and programmes that have major initiatives on participatory building including UNHABITAT, ANUMI, UNDP, EU, AfDB, CIDA, and the World Bank.

Activities

Networking : Identifying and linking together teams from cities, NGOs, associations of local governments, universities, international organizations and other organizations interested in participatory budgeting. All interested members shall sign up on a regional e-mail distribution list on a common web page and be able to share knowledge.

Knowledge Development: Conducting joint research and developing training materials and learning tools on participatory budgeting.

Knowledge Dissemination : Documenting and sharing new materials and experiences by means of translating materials received from other Regional Facilities and own materials into the respective languages, incorporating and disseminating through a webpage, sere list, and quarterly newsletter.

Learning Events : Delivering annual distance learning course on participatory budgeting. The participants of the course will include among others, elected officials, civil servants, technical professionals, universities, NGOs, civic groups and members of local government associations.

Outcomes

The expected outcome for the low-income country beneficiaries in Africa are tangible improvements in the following:

• An effective and financially sustainable Participatory Budgeting Knowledge and Action Support facility in Africa;
  
• Increased learning opportunities on participatory budgeting through on-line training and regional courses in English and French, and local languages;
  
• Increased action support for building capacity to design, implement and monitor participatory budgeting mechanisms;
  
• Improved and updated access to experiences and initiatives on participatory budgeting from Africa, and around the world; and
  
• Strengthening global, regional and national coalitions and networks on Participatory Budgeting. Knowledge dissemination and operational support.

From the MDP-ESA perspective , participatory budgeting can be defined as a cyclical processes by which  governments widen mechanisms for promoting civic engagement in identifying local needs, deciding preferences as well as in the implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of the budget taking into account expenditure requirements and available resources .

Beneficiaries

The beneficiaries of the facility will include elected officials, civil servants, technical professionals, universities, NGOs, local government associations, civic groups and other organizations involved in participatory budgeting in low-income countries, particularly Africa. The activity would promote cooperation among these key stakeholders in low-income countries.

The Municipal Development Partnership (MDP) was launched in 1991 with a mission to support  decentralization processes, strengthen the capacity of local governments to deliver services and ensure development at local levels as a vehicle for improving the quality of life for local communities.

MDP was designed to operate out of two units one serving Eastern and Southern Africa and the other serving Western and Central Africa. Both units were intended to focus on regional programmes as well as to collaborate in addressing common problems of both regions.

The Eastern and Southern Africa MDP is currently structured around six programmes which reflect the demand for its services. The programmes are: (i) Participatory Budgeting and Social Accountability; (ii) Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations and Local Government Finance; (iii) Strategic Planning and Urban Management; (iv) Local Economic Development and Poverty Reduction; (v) Urban Agriculture; (vi) Knowledge Management and Sharing