Does volunteering play a role in participatory budgeting?
Participatory Budget Processes are always undertaken with a great amount of voluntary effort, both from civil society and from the various instances of local government. Volunteerism is expressed in every stage of the PB cycle, as much in the elaboration of the budget as the execution phase. In order to reinforce citizen participation and voluntary action, some cities have included this dimension as a criterion for the prioritisation of works. Furthermore, the analysis of the experiences indicates that the Participatory Budget channels social capital, stimulates voluntary action and reactivates traditional community voluntary practices, for example, the mingas (or minkas) in the Andean region. In Cuenca, the value contributed by the community in labour, material and equipment doubles the value of the projects financed by the Participatory Budget.
