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Contributions from
the Column
Facts and trends
New old hope development aid?
WTO negotiations on agriculture stalled
Chair of Development in Utrecht
Africa Days at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation
Learn from the South: a citizens' budget for Berlin
UN Anti-Corruption Convention: dispute over monitoring
First German investigation into bribery abroad
Voluntary self-regulation
Corruption threatens to hamstring Sri Lanka reconstruction
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Interview with Martin Hoffmann
Learn from the South: a citizens' budget for Berlin
Cord Jakobeit
Since 1989, the citizens of Porto Alegre have been able to participate in drafting the budget of the South Brazilian city of more than a million inhabitants. Within the framework of the so-called citizens' budget the people's priorities are ascertained and taken account of in the drawing up of the final budget. The model has also aroused interest in Germany, and pilot projects have been launched in some municipalities in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. The 'Initiative Bürgerhaushalt (Citizens' Budget) in Berlin' orients itself most strongly on the Brazilian model. We talked to Martin Hoffmann, a member of the Berlin Initiative.
Mr Hoffmann, what can Berlin learn from Porto Alegre?
It can learn how citizens can be given a share in drafting the budget and which institutions are needed for that.
In Porto Alegre the citizens' budget was established soon after the end of the dictatorship in Brazil. Is there at all a demand in Berlin for such intensive participation?
On the one hand, it will be decisive that enough response develops in civil society. There has, after all, been a series of serious financial scandals in Berlin which sparked protests. But so far they have not been so strong that one can say with certainty that the citizens' budget idea will work. On the other hand, the initiative depends upon a political party or a group of politicians coming out for it.
How far has the initiative progressed?
There have been talks with representatives of politics and the administration. In almost all parties there has been approval by individual MPs, but so far no clear decision for support. A first public event with prominent Berlin politicians will take place on May 25. In the administration, most of those interested in the initiative are still playing their cards close to their chest.
Could not a citizens' budget lead to a democratically-disguised lobbyism that improves even further the opportunities for those who anyway are influential to secure for themselves the biggest slices of the cake?
That must be prevented by the citizens' budget having a transparent structure. There are many interest groups in Berlin that have learnt how to bring themselves informally and well into political decisions. Greater transparency will not perhaps prevent these groups from having more influence than others. But that would in future be visible and the possibilities of resisting it would be better.
A goal of your initiative is balancing the city-state budget. Why should that be better achieved with the direct participation of the citizens than without it?
It is not balancing the budget that is our first goal, but more participation. But the experience in Porto Alegre and other cities around the world shows that citizen participation often results in a balanced budget. If the citizens have a say, then wrong decisions such as that at present in Berlin, with one-third of the budget being financed by loans, will be much more difficult to push through.
What is the shape of the development cooperation between Porto Alegre and Berlin in practice? Were you there for training, or did Brazilian development experts' come to Berlin?
Both. Some staff of our initiative have looked at the model on-site, and we have also had visitors from Porto Alegre. In May, an administration employee and a member of the Citizens' Council for the Participation Budget from Porto Alegre will make a tour of Germany in order to report in a number of municipalities on their experiences.
Questions by Tillmann Elliesen.
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