Where did participatory budgeting originate?
Participatory budgeting has been most frequently identified as developing in the Brazilian City of Porto Alegre in the early 1980’s. Porto Alegre has received much international praise for the way it has used PB to improve its administration of the city, and it has been the centre of much research into citizen engagement around public spending. PB was also developed in other Latin American cities at around the same time, and has spread to many other cities. As it has moved from city to city PB has always been adapted to the local situation, and so there is no one pure model of PB. Many other parts of the world have also been recognised as innovators in citizen participation. Developing, from different starting positions, similar experiences and principles of PB as those used in Porto Alegre. For example in India local people have been trained to read and question public budgets, and this has enabled citizens to have greater influence over public spending. In the 1980’s New Zealand deve
