Comparative study of public participatory experiences Brazil - Mexico - Canada - Croatia - Kenya - South Africa - South Korea - Philippines Dec 1 - 2015

Objective Does each individual case clearly define public participation? Does each individual case distinguish between public access to budget information (transparency) and public participation processes? Does each individual case distinguish between institutional (structured) and extra-institutional participation? Does each individual case provide evidence about how formal participation processes are supposed to work and how they actually work? How representative these initiatives are of the broader national and subnational levels (how many states, cities, municipalities and counties they include).

Justification Answering these questions is a pre-condition to further assessments of successes and failures as well as impacts and outcomes of public participatory experiences in these countries and elsewhere.

Does each individual case clearly define public participation? Mexico no South Korea Philippines Brazil Distinguish between direct participation and institutionalized participation. South Africa Kenya Croatia yes Canada

Limited = degree of details Does each individual case distinguish between public access to budget information (transparency) and public participation processes? Limited = degree of details Mexico no There is a distinction between public oversight (social control) X participatory mechanisms (FOIA and OGP both feature as social control mechanism). South Korea Philippines limited Specific section for participatory experiences. Transparency cases are presented in another section (historical overview). Brazil South Africa Kenya Croatia Transparency and participation are classified as participation-related reform. Canada

Does each individual case distinguish between institutional (structured) and extra- institutional participation? Mexico no Considering the emphasis on informal meetings between policy-decision and civil society, it is possible to conclude that the most examples should be classified as extra-institutional participation. South Korea We can conclude that most part of the initiatives are structured as they are results of the government actions. Philippines We can conclude that most part of the initiatives are structured as they are results of the government. Brazil Yes Participatory Budgeting and Public Policy conferences, for example, are presented as structured mechanism while strikes and social mobilization as extra-institutional participation. South Africa Extra-institutional participation is presented as more effective that institutional one. Lack of definition on participation hinder the comprehension of extra-institutional participation as a real public participatory experience. Kenya As most of the experiences originated in the constitution it is clear that all cases are structured participation, with exception of the Institute of Social Accountability (TISA). Croatia The focus of the paper is on the institutional venues of participation. Canada

Limited = degree of details Does each individual case provide evidence about how formal participation processes are supposed to work? Limited = degree of details Mexico Yes There is some description on the windows of opportunity for participation in the Federal Budget Process and in the legislative. However the information is not structured and organized in order to present how the formal participation processes are supposed to work. South Korea The evidence is related to the “three plus one” fiscal reform carried out by Roh Moo-hyun. There is more a description of the reform and the methods and processes of resources allocation than a presentation of participation evidence. Philippines Significant quantity of examples but no in-depth analysis. More descriptive than explanatory. Brazil Limited The paper focuses more in how the experiences actually works and less in how they were supposed to work. South Africa As the emphasis of the working papers is on the extra-institutional participation, the description of the structured cases is not deep enough. Kenya Constitution of 2010 offers windows of opportunity for public participation. Croatia The study developed a more detailed classification of the experiences organized by several topics such as policy type, scope, quantity and quality, meaningfulness, efficiency etc, however as the other studies did not use the same classification it difficult to make an analytical comparison. Canada The experiences are presented as windows of opportunity within the budgetary process.The study developed a particular methodology incorporating the GIFT principles to assess the quality of public participation, but as the other studies did not use the same classification it is difficult to make an analytical comparison.

Limited = degree of details Does each individual case provide independent evidence of how formal public participation in budget processes actually work in practice? Limited = degree of details Mexico Limited There is some evidence on how participation actually works once the report highlight that the majority of participation in the fiscal policy budget process occurs though informal meeting between technocrats and experts, academics and representatives of NGOs.  As the study refers to some independent works (such as Ackerman, 2003; Cejudo, 2015; Mejía, 2015 as well as Mexico`s ranking in the Open Budget Survey), it`s possible to observe a less biased evidence. South Korea There is some evidence on how participation actually works as the report highlight that the majority of participation in the fiscal policy budget process occurs though meeting between technocrats and experts, academics and representatives of NGOs and that there is limited participation by general citizens.  However, it is not clear what the source of the information are. Philippines There are some evidence on how participation actually works, however it is descriptive and it is not possible to distinguish between how participation is supposed to work and how it actually works. Furthermore, the study indicates that a handful of them are in their experimental phase therefore it`s not clear whether they are indeed operational in most part of the localities or not. Lastly, although there is a bibliography few bibliographical references in the text, difficult to identify for possible biases. Brazil Yes South Africa As the emphasis of the working papers is on the extra-institutional participation, the description of the structured cases in not deep. The study highlights that extra-institutional participation is working better and we can conclude that institutional participation is not working well. The description of the extra-institutional cases is well detailed. Kenya limited Croatia The focus of the study is on the windows of opportunity for public participation and there is no in-depth description about how participation actually works in practice. Canada The author addresses the weakness of the experiences and the lack of participation mechanisms during the process. But there is little information about how participation actually works.

NATIONAL BUDGET Mexico Yes South Korea Philippines yes Brazil Does each individual case distinguish between executive and legislative? Mexico Yes South Korea Philippines yes Brazil There is also a section dedicated to the Judiciary. South Africa No Kenya Croatia Canada

SUBNATIONAL BUDGETS (STATES AND MUNICIPALITIES) Does each individual case present how many states, cities, municipalities and counties the evidence include? Mexico Limited The study states that Mexico City, Oaxaca, Durango, Guerrero and Michoacán have participatory budgeting program. However, there is no information about that, only a briefly information about Mexico City experiences. South Korea No Philippines Many experiences are in experimental phase. Not clear if they are active in most public agencies and localities. Brazil Yes The study presents substantial data on the scopes and shows an increase of participatory processes. South Africa There is only a brief description about Cape Town, however the study states that the case is very recent and its potential remains unclear. Kenya The study mention some counties but the information about the experiences in these counties is limited. Croatia There is a case study on City of Pazin. Canada There are some case studies in cities and provincial governments.

Results

Quantitative

Conclusions Each working paper developed its own methodology, which prevents a comprehensive assessment of the findings, as well as to identify successes and failures. There is no clear definition on transparency and participation neither a clear distinction between them. Further analysis will require a similar methodological framework to be applied for all the cases. The methodology should address a conceptualization on transparency and participation and a distinction between them. Moreover the methodology should include a standard to register the evidence considering representativeness issues as well as how the experiences are supposed to work and how they are actually working. The methodology will be necessary to the assessment of their impacts and results.