Town Meetings in Peru

First off, I've added a few (bad) pictures to the Cusco album in the sidebar. Check it out if you like painted campaign signs.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Got a chance to go out to one of the Anta participatory budgeting fora today. Interesting. Anta is the province which implemented the participatory budgeting process in Peru, which, in theory, is supposed to be universal nowadays. Indeed, the institutions of participatory budgeting seem to be widespread, but the way the budgeting process is carried out, and whether or not the budget is carried through is an open question. I've met several people (in other places) who have said things like, "we were supposed to receive X soles in last year's budget, but the money was never provided."

In Anta, however, the process seems to be fairly well implemented, in a democratic way, and indeed, there seems to be some follow-through. Not only does the government seem to carry out the things the budget prioritizes, they have developed a simple but consistent way of prioritizing projects, which doesn't permit the districts to select projects which are contrary to the municipality's strategic development plan. In other places, such contradictions (between development plans and participatory budgets) have been a major complaint of municipal officials about the participatory budgeting processes.

The actual meeting took place outside the church in one of the rural villages in Anta, which chickens and stray dogs at our feet, and with a beautiful view out onto the valley which makes up most of the province.

Probably half the meeting was conducted in Quechua (some of which I understood fairly well), and the community was generally in reasonably strong agreement about their priorities in the budget--completion of an irrigation project which has already been started, and the introduction of clean drinking water and sewage/drainage to the community. Apparently, this sort of agreement is fairly unusual, and there are usually conflicts within communities, including between different factions, and conflict whipped up by individuals with political ambitions.

My take on the participatory budgeting process is thus:
1. It promotes transparency. The communities know what projects have been selected for completion, and therefore, know when things haven't been completed.
2. It promoted better decision-making. Although the prioritization of projects is ultimately performed by the mayor's office, the process feeds information to the mayor about the needs of the communities. Without such an extensive institutionalized process of interest articulation, local executives simply don't know as well what voters need and want.
3. It promotes a participatory culture. Repeatedly, interviewees have told me that the participatory budgeting process has changed citizens' ideas about government from "Kiss the hand" of the mayor (as one interviewee described it), to the expectation that the municipality has a duty to carry out projects for the citizen. This sort of culture makes it more likely that politicians will be punished for following their own personal agendas, and not the agenda of the communities.