PB and the budget process in the south Kivu Province

Abstract

Very often, Participatory Budgeting (PB) is examined as a separate process from regular budget processes, being read as a sort of “sectorial policy” which provides, at the same time, dynamization of local institutions and the social fabric, but has a limited impact on the general budget process. In this respect, the experience which started in 2011 in the South Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo represents a rare case. This is because since the beginning PB was set imagining that it could have a meaningful impact on the local budget of involved municipalities, and in relation to the transfer of resources granted to them by the Provincial Government. For this reason, this article examines the Participatory Budgeting process of South Kivu from the perspective of the general budgeting process. It tries to highlight a number of activities and decisions in relationship with the PB process that were able to go further than the mere promotion of more democratic decision-making and budget transparency. The PB hierarchy structure and its backup structure, as well as political commitment, contributed to facilitate the success of the process. Decentralized entities have been trained on how to associate citizens during the preparation of budget estimates and key stakeholders have been involved to facilitate the process. Revenue collections have registered improvements as well as intergovernmental transfers to be received by decentralized entities from the provincial government, while local authorities became more realistic in doing their estimates about the future revenues and expenditures. Up to now, citizens have been associated with the determination of investment priorities for the fiscal year 2012 & 2013. This has disclosed some new interesting challenges for the future improvements and scaling-up of the experiment.