Planning from Below. Marta Harnecker
with reference to Kerala, in paragraph 132.
41. Of course, we are not talking about anarchic decentralization. The ideal scenario would involve a national system of participatory planning that would bring together community plans, the plans developed by territorial areas or communes, and those of municipalities or cantons, as well as the plans of any other level of government.
42. While recognizing the need for a national plan, the type of planning we are proposing allows local institutions to play a fundamental role not only in contributing to the design and implementation of the national plan but also by having the autonomy to plan within their own territory and carry out an important part of the national plan. The national plan has a real existence in the degree to which it expresses itself in the lowest, most local levels of decentralization: the reality of the nation emerges from the neighborhoods and villages.
43. Of course, we are referring here to a relative autonomy, as the general guidelines of the national plan have to be respected. What we are talking about is adjusting it to the specific social, cultural and economic realities of each geographical area.
44. Moreover, we envisage a decentralization that is infused with a spirit of solidarity, which favors the most disadvantaged localities and social sectors. One of the important roles of the state and local governments is to redistribute resources in order to protect the weakest and help them develop.
45. In order to emphasize the fact that decentralization is a crucial element in the type of planning we are proposing, we have called the process decentralized participatory planning.
46. Just as we were initially influenced by the emphasis President Chavez placed on planning at the level of the communal councils, a topic we will return to later on, our current understanding of planning has been further influenced – as we mentioned in the introduction – by the experience of decentralized participatory planning which they have developed over more than a decade, and with much success, in the Indian state of Kerala.
4) ACHIEVEMENTS AND WEAKNESSES OF PARTICIPATORY BUDGETS
47. You might be asking why are we talking about participatory planning instead of participatory budgeting.
48. We cannot ignore the contribution made by participatory budgeting, a process whereby people participate in the design and implementation of an annual investment plan, that is, in prioritizing where resources assigned to municipal public works and services should be invested. This process has been implemented in various regions across the world and has helped increase the level of people’s participation in public policy making. It has also helped improve the performance of municipal governments and, above all, made municipal governance more transparent, while also benefiting the most disadvantaged sectors.7
49. Participatory budgeting can become an effective weapon in the fight against corruption and the diversion of funds. People not only prioritize certain public works and services but also organize themselves to follow up on their implementation and monitoring to make sure that allocated resources are used for the objective that had been decided on This also increases the chances that the works or services are carried out to the required standard of quality.
50. Participatory budgeting is also an ideal means for speeding up the administrative machinery, making it more efficient and decreasing bureaucracy given that so many eyes are monitoring the process and pressuring to make sure public works are completed on time.
51. When people see the efficiency and transparency with which resources that come from their taxes are used, they begin to feel more willing to comply with taxation regulations and are less prone to evade taxes. This tends to lead to an increase in municipal tax collection.
52. In times of economic crisis and budget cuts, when it is necessary to “tighten belts” because there are fewer resources than the year before, the method of participatory planning is particularly useful and revolutionary as it places in people’s hands the decision as to what should be done with the scarce resources they have. There is a big difference between a people suffering cuts when they are made from above and when the people themselves, via participatory planning, make these decisions.
53. However, this process also has its limitations.
54. On the one hand, given that the objective of participatory budgeting is to determine which public works or services should be prioritized given the resources available each year, the discussion carried out with participatory budgeting tends to focus solely on these issues rather than on longer term goals that can allow us to move towards the kind of society we want to build. The fact that participatory budgeting is restricted to the framework of an annual investment plan limits the scope and horizon of government actions.
55. On the other hand, in many cases, public works and services prioritized by the people during the participatory budgeting process do not fit within any plan, which can lead to chaotic development.
56. In contrast the participatory planning we advocate is not limited to discussing investment in public works and services that the population deems necessary. It goes further and proposes actions that affect society as a whole: the development of cooperative industries that offer employment to underemployed or marginalized sectors; finding sustainable solutions based on the natural and human resources available within the territory; the elimination of intermediaries in the distribution of food; mechanisms for the redistribution of natural resources, rents, etc. In sum, participatory planning should create the basis for a new, more just and humane society.
57. Thus, participatory planning is not in competition with participatory budgeting; rather, it seeks to go further. Ultimately, annual budgets should reflect yearly provisions within a longer-term plan so that investment plans included as part of these budgets represent the advances made in the implementation of the multi-annual investment plans.
5) Political importance of our proposal
58. According to the experiences we have studied, a mass decentralized participatory planning process can have a lot of positive political outcomes. Apart from those already noted above, when we speak about the positive aspects of participatory budgeting, we can add the following:
59. Although the process starts with a diagnosis of problems and deficiencies, its aim is to orient people towards imagining the kind of community they would like to live in. It helps stimulate them to think of initiatives that go beyond merely material things, such as the idea that emerged in Caracas when Aristóbulo Istúriz was mayor to get children to paint murals on street corners.
60. Participatory planning can help to transform the traditional logic of distribution of public resources that has always benefited those sectors with higher incomes, in order to now favor greater social inclusion. By promoting popular participation – especially among the most disadvantaged sectors - participatory planning becomes a powerful weapon for better redistributing public resources, thereby inverting priorities that previous governments had until now. Those that were previously humiliated and unprotected are now the most cared for.
61. Given that projected public works and services should emerge from a collective discussion based on national, regional and state or provincial development plans, and that projects are prioritized according to certain criteria, investments are no longer carried out in an anarchic manner or in line with the personal criteria of a particular mayor or governor.
62. Participatory planning is also an instrument in the fight against clientelism and the exchange of favors. As the community itself designs the project, the potential for cronyism is considerably diminished, as is the influence of administrative leaders, councilors or so-called “managers.”
63. It strengthens the work of existing organized communities and promotes the organization of others.
64. It can act as an instrument with which to measure whether politicians and elected representatives are committed to participatory processes. It reveals whether they are really willing to promote participation and allow people to exercise power.
65. It is a school