Participation budget programmes for residents
About this good practice
The purpose of the participatory budget programmes is to give a chance for non-governmental and nonprofit civic or sometimes religious organisations, and neighbourhood associations to apply with their locally crafted (often) public infrastructure projects to be selected by other residents and the city to be fulfilled within their local neighbourhoods. Such participation initiatives exist practically in every municipality of the planning region, for example, in Ādaži (since 2010), Riga (since 2019), Ķekava (2023), Olaine (2021), Mārupe (2023), Ropaži (2022) and Sigulda (2023). Their purpose is for local residents to take part (and responsibility) in developing their local environment, infrastructure, and possibilities. Often such projects are developed in neighbourhoods outside centres and within the periphery of municipalities, and the sums each project can be accounted for are reasonable - for example, in Riga the maximum expenses for each project can be up to 100,000 EUR.
Resources needed
Funding must be allocated from each municipality for organisation, building, stakeholder engagement, and planning. Human resources included urban planners, transport specialists, business strategists, and local community members.
Evidence of success
Since the inauguration of the participatory budget programmes there are, possibly, over a hundred new local development projects being carried out across the planning region with residents being the main authors. The participatory budget is now a common practice in most of the largest municipalities in Latvia.
Potential for learning or transfer
This practice highlights the importance of integrated urban planning and community involvement in making decisions about their own living space. Since the concept covers towns with 20+ thousands of residents as well as 600+ thousand, each municipality has different experience, bureaucracy process and success stories that can be tailored to other municipalities elsewhere. Also, the whole phenomenon has been around for over a decade that brings in many learnings, tricks and methods municipalities are happy to share
Further information
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Good practice owner
You can contact the good practice owner below for more detailed information.