In Zambia, a People’s Budget Campaign Demands a Budget that Works for Women

By Daisy Lutangu Mwilima, Open Democracy

The national budget in any country is one of the key instruments a government can use to fight inequality and bridge the gap between the rich and the poor. For this reason, Fight Inequality Alliance Zambia has been carrying out a People’s Budget campaign in the last couple of months to advocate for a more equal budget that represents the needs of the majority poor and not the elite.

Funding Transformation

By Fergal Finnegan, Niamh McCrea, openDemocracy

A healthy participatory democracy relies on forms of community development that support effective mobilisation at the local level and encourage advanced capacities for democratic decision making and critical thinking.

Participatory Budgeting: When Government Really is by the People

By Adam Simpson, Shari Davis, Alexander Kolokotronis, Loriane Ngarambe, The Next System Project

In terms of broader systems change, participatory budgeting, when adopted, marks a real change in the way that folks do business, a real change in the way that government operates. For me, and for many folks, this is a beginning of a larger participatory democratic wave...

Participatory Budgeting is Gaining Momentum in the US. How Does it Work?

By Kristine Wong, Shareable

But now participatory budgeting, a concept in which citizens get to vote democratically on how a particular pot of public funds will be spent, has been gaining traction across the U.S. over the last few years, and promising to give citizens a voice in these matters.

Portugal Announces World’s First Nationwide Participatory Budgeting Project

By Cat Johnson, Shareable

Participatory budgeting is becoming increasingly popular, with more than 1,500 programs worldwide.

How Communities are using Direct Democracy to Shape City Budgets

By Brandon Jourdan, Waging Nonviolence

“Participatory budgeting is a great process for bringing more voices to the table and providing a more equitable space for those voices to be heard,”...

Building Economic Democracy & Radical Inclusivity

By Aaron Tanaka, Ben Roberts, Resilience.org

We spoke with Aaron about the transformative power of grassroots organizing and leadership development, the prison-industrial complex, participatory budgeting, and more...

You can add us to equations but they never make us equal

By Peter Levine, Open Democracy

Allocating $1 million won’t make these young people equal to the mayor of Boston either. But they themselves were the ones solving the equations, and that gave them a genuine sense and share of power.

Participatory Budgeting Gets Some Traction in the US

By David Bollier, David Bollier blog

The success of a PB project depends a great deal on grassroots leadership and outreach.

Improving Democracy Through Deliberation

By Marcin Gerwin, Permaculture Research Institute of Australia

The difficulties that relate to modern democracy probably start with the use of that term.