| AUTHOR | Deborah Brautigam |
| ORGANIZATION | Development Policy Review |
| TYPE | Journal Article |
| DATE | 2004 |
| TOPIC | Budgeting for children |
| LANGUAGE | English |
Recent moves towards participatory budgeting have raised hopes and expectations that spending and revenue generation can be made more pro-poor if informed citizens and their non-traditional political organisations participate directly in budgeting decisions. This article reviews experiences of participatory budgeting and pro-poor policy-making in Brazil, Ireland, Chile, Mauritius and Costa Rica. It draws attention to several important issues, including: Who participates? What kind of institutional framework is necessary? What happened to the revenue-generation side of pro-poor budgeting? It points out that making spending and taxation more pro-poor has historically depended on pro-poor political parties gaining power.
