RESEARCH IN GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

No. 5 September 2019

Citizen Participatory Budgeting in Local Government:

A Case Study of Selected Union Parishads of Bangladesh

Doctoral Degree Program Global Governance Program Enrollment in 2018

Shaikh Mohammad Jobayed Hossain

【Abstract】
This paper is to discuss citizen participation within the mechanism of participatory budgeting of
Union Parishads1 of Bangladesh. It analyzes the roles of stakeholders along with revealing the
factors that attract citizens to participate under the mandatory provision of citizen engagement of
UP. The paper also points out the existing problems and challenges in the way of materializing
participation and possible measures are discussed towards an eŠective engagement by the UP in a
participatory budgeting process. A ˆeld level survey was conducted for collecting data through
semi-structured questionnaires, informal interview and observation. The ˆndings show that the
overall engagement scope for decision-making is limited due to ignorance of citizens, denial of UPs
and numerous challenges. This paper concludes that although the government has made citizen
participation mandatory under the participatory budgeting process, there are gaps in engaging
citizens eŠectively.

【Key Words】 Citizen participation, participatory budgeting, local government, Union Parishad.

1 UP refers to Union Parishad, the lowest tier of local government system of Bangladesh. There are two types
local government in Bangladesh based on their location; the rural local government and the urban local
government. The rural local government has three tiers; Union Parishad (Union Council), Upazilla Parishad
(Sub-district Council) and Zilla Parishad (District Council), and the urban local government has two tiers;
Pourshava (Municipality) and City Corporation. As of March 2019, there are 4571 Union Parishads, 492
Upazilla Parishads, 64 Zilla Parishads, 316 Pourashavas and 11 City Corporations (https://lgd.gov.bd). So,
the total number of local government unit is 5454.

The Graduate School Journal Committee Accepted: May 27, 2019

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1. Introduction

Participatory budgeting is a decision-making process through which citizens deliberate and

negotiate over the distribution of public resources (Wampler, 2000). Participatory budgeting is

considered as one of the eŠective tools of citizen participation to the new way of participatory

governance (Lerner & Hall, 2007). It is also one of the most exciting innovations in the develop-

ment of local democracy originated in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1989 and further propagat-

ed in other cities as well as local governments in various forms and has become a political reality
(Sintomer et. al. 2013) in both developing and developed nations around the globe. This practice

was also started in Bangladesh in the early 2000s at UP level in the name of `open budget meeting'.

It was mainly piloted in some selected UPs of Sirajganj district under a project named `Sirajganj

Local Government Development Fund Project' initiated by the Ministry of Local Government
(Rahman, et. al, 2004). According to UNDP (2007), the project has been marked as a pioneer in

the area of ˆscal decentralization, participatory planning, and budgeting. The project drew remark-

able attention to the donors, civil society, local government actors and the central government. Con-

sidering the success of this project in citizen engagement, this participatory practice was rolled out

nationwide and later made mandatory by law in 20092. However, the overall participation of citizen

under the participatory budgeting process is deemed ineŠective. Hence, this study adopts UPs as

the case study to reveal the gaps in citizen participation under the mandatory legal framework.

As per `Local Government (Union Parishad) Act 2009'3 each UP consists of a chairman, nine

members representing each from nine wards and 3 reserved women members each from three

wards. A UP has various functions and responsibilities to perform for the development and welfare

of its constituency. The formulation of annual budget with the participation of local citizens is one

of the important functions. As this budget formulation process is to be citizen participatory by law,

it is called the participatory budgeting. According to the Article 4 and 5 of the Act, UP is to or-

ganize ward meeting twice a year to prioritize projects with the participation of a minimum of 5

voters.4 Article 57 and 58 of the same Act describes the details of the mandated participatory budg-

et making process. Based on the Act an `Operational Manual'5 was developed where participatory

budgeting process is described in detail, which is illustrated in Figure 1. In this process there are

ten sequential steps and the ˆrst and foremost step is identiˆcation and prioritization of schemes in

2 Local Government (Union Parishad) Act 2009 of Government of Bangladesh.

3 Article 10 of Chapter 3 of Local Government (UP) Act 2009.
4 Only voters can participate at the participatory process of UP. In this paper citizen means voters.
5 UP Operational Manual 2012.

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 Figure 1: UP Participatory Budgeting Process. Source: Developed by Author based on the UP
Operational Manual 2012.

the ward meeting which is held with citizens followed by the second steps of ˆnalizing priorities by

UP standing committee comprised by the citizens from diŠerent wards. Then during the budget

meeting citizens suppose to be invited and participate to give their opinion and feedback and that

feedback need to be addressed by the UP council before approving. Moreover, quarterly and half-

yearly review also to be done engaging representatives from citizen.

There are few previous studies on the participatory budgeting of UP. Detail studies on citizen

participation within the mechanism of participatory budgeting are rare. Some studies identiˆed the

implementation problems of participatory budgeting but did not focus to the problems in citizen en-

gagement process in depth. Hence, this study aims to know the citizen engagement mechanisms

along with identifying interest of citizens as well as willingness of UPs. The study also attempts to

reveal the reasons for citizen participation along with ˆnding out the measures for strengthening

participation. Identifying the problems and remedies are signiˆcant to understand the overall

mechanisms in participatory process. This study does not look into the ˆnancial eŠectiveness of

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participatory budgeting through input-output analysis but looks into participation of citizens in the

process of participatory budgeting.

There are three research questions of this study: (1) How do stakeholders perform their roles in

the participatory budgeting process? (2) What are the reasons behind interest of citizen in partici-

pation? (3) What are the problems and challenges and how these could be addressed in realizing

eŠective participation? To answer these questions a ˆeld level survey was undertaken among the

citizens and UP representatives of selected UPs by using semi-structured questionnaire.

The structure of this paper is as follows. The upcoming section is on the overview of literature on

citizen participation and participatory budgeting in local government followed by a methodology

section. The next section presents the survey results followed by a discussion section. This paper

concludes with few observations, limitations of study and suggestions for further research.

2. Literature Review

Citizen participation is a process, which provides an opportunity for citizens to in‰uence public

decisions, and has long been a component of the democratic decision-making process (Cogan &

Sharpe, 1986). Goetz & Gaventa (2001) identify citizen participation as a part of governance. They

argue that a democratic state has duty to involve citizen in decision-making that aŠects their lives.

Participation is not a favor or privilege but a basic right that is connected with making better

citizens in terms of responsive and responsible. This kind of direct involvement results empower-

ment of the community. As a whole, participation is an inclusive process by which poor people exer-

cise voice through new forms of inclusion, consultation, and mobilization (Gaventa & Valderrama,

1999). Hence, this study considers participation as a citizen's rights under legal provision. How

citizens are responding towards realization of their rights and how UPs are creating space for

citizens are simultaneously important. In this context, both of these stakeholders role-playing are

focused to identify the activism in participation in a participatory budgeting.

Although citizen involvement has positive eŠects in many aspects, it should not be seen as a

panacea for better governance, as there are danger of absence, non-inclusion, inactive participation

and unheard voices. At the same time, there is danger of excessively high expectation by citizens

and danger of ruling over the local councils. Increased participation may further entrench existing

patterns of political and social inequality instead of desired aŠect of increasing the voice of the poor

and marginalized in local decision-making (Schonwalder, 1997). Similarly, Dahl (1956) assumes

that massive participation could be dangerous. It could even lead to totalitarianism (Sartori, 1987).

On the contrary, other scholars, for example, Michels and Graaf (2010) mark these arguments as

narrow concepts of participation seeing the things by one eye. They elaborate that participation

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might have limitations in terms of where to participate, who participates, how to participate, when

to participate and how far to participate, but its eŠect in governance cannot be denied.

Blair (2000) claims that through participation, local government will become more responsive to

citizen's demand and more eŠective in service delivery, thus decentralization with devolution is es-

sentially needed (Beetham, 1996). In this context, some democratic tools with full innovative and

devolutionary processes are required to enhance meaningful participation. So, `participatory budg-

eting' has been heralded as a crucial democratic innovation resulting fruitful relationship between

citizens and local government authorities (Peruzzotti, 2005). That is why, participatory budgeting

is termed one of the emerging tools of public engagement design to solicit feedback and input and

produce decisions regarding the ˆnancial allocation (Gordon et. al. 2017). In the larger context,

participatory budgeting is the shift from government to governance and it emphasizes on enabling

the role of public authority (Pieterse, 2001). Gradually, it is gaining ground as an innovative ap-

proach to creating governance in local government, the primary actor to address problems of citizen
(Rodgers, 2010). Hence, participatory budgeting is particularly happened in local government lev-

el, as the local government is the ˆrsthand institution to respond citizen's need. Since inception,

participatory budgeting has spread to more than 3,000 local governments around the world.6

Participatory budgeting represents `direct democracy' (Cabannes, 2004) while `representative

democracy' has deˆciencies to uphold citizen's voices and needs. Major portion of citizens are

excluded through the traditional voting system under the representativeness, as voter's turnout is

decreasing day by day. Moreover, citizen has less access points of direct participation in policy

decision-making. On the other hand, participatory budgeting oŠers citizens opportunity to take part

in government operations and allows them for deliberating, debating, and in‰uencing on allocation

of resources (Shah, 2007). Participatory budgeting also promotes transparency and has potential to

reduce corruption (Wampler, 2000) by avoiding misuse of resources. Thus this study tries to

reveal the reasons behind participation by citizens in a budgetary process of UP.

There are overall lacks of transparency and accountability in local governments of Bangladesh.

As Panday (2011) argues that local governments have to face several institutional challenges: lack

of authority and power, authoritative central and local relationships, inadequate ˆnancial resources,

and lack of transparency and accountability. In this context, participatory budgeting could be a

better option to curb the ine‹ciency and corruption for the local government like UP. According to

Ullah and Pongquan (2011), the new system of participatory budgeting and planning has been

6 Source: Participatory Budgeting Project website. https://www.participatorybudgeting.org accessed on April

10, 2019.

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facilitating democratization including a process of decision-making deemed has having a transfer

eŠect from central to local government. They observe that this system has created local ownership

and a stake in project selection and implementation with local knowledge. They also argue that

participatory system of budgeting and planning is still a di‹cult task and it can be eŠective when

people have a greater say in how their local institutions and development priorities are addressed

and managed. The eŠectiveness of citizen participation under the participatory budgeting is

questioned for many reasons including citizen's unawareness, UP representative's incapability,

political interference in terms of elite capture in participation. Similarly, in a more recent study,

Waheduzzaman et. al. (2018) argue that citizen participation programs are dominated by a nexus

of local elites including political people because they do not understand the value that direct citizen

participation can bring, and citizens are unaware of their own rights and often wary of challenging

elites as they are selected by the UP representatives. This study critically analyzed the problems

and challenges of citizen participation in participatory budgeting process and identiˆed possible

measures in this regard.

3. Data Collection and Methods

This research is to discuss participation of citizen under participatory budgeting mechanisms of

the local government UPs of Bangladesh. A ˆeld survey was conducted in two districts of

Bangladesh: Barguna and Sylhet during January 2019 to know the actual ˆeld level situation of

participation of citizens in the participatory budgeting process of UP. No previous research was

done on the citizen participation and participatory budgeting of these two districts. The two

districts were purposefully selected considering their socio-economic conditions and diŠerent

geographic locations. The average rate of poverty of Sylhet district is 18.0 and Barguna district is

32.1 and national average rate of poverty is 24.37. Sylhet is located in the northeast corner and

Barguna is located in the coastal and in most southern part close to the Bay of Bengal and mostly a

disaster prone area. Sylhet is almost three times bigger than Barguna by area, number of UPs and

population/voter size. The number of UPs in Sylhet is 105 and in Barguna is 35 and number of

voter is 1.8 and 0.6 million respectively8. These two districts were selected with an intention to see

the variation in perceptions. This study does not compare citizen participation or participatory

budgeting of these two districts.

7 Source: Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. Preliminary Report on Household Income and Expenditure Survey
2016, published in October 2017.
8 Source: District websites http://www.barguna.gov.bd/ and http://www.sylhet.gov.bd/ accessed on April 10,
2019.

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 Table 1 : Number of Respondents by Location and Category
Number of Respondents
Location/Category
UP Respondents Citizen Respondents

Barguna 13 40
Sylhet 17 60

Total＝ 30 100
Source: Created by Author.

The main target groups for this research are citizens (voters) and UP representatives (the

elected councilors). To collect data two separate semi-structured questionnaires were used for two

groups. The sample size for UP representatives and general citizens was 30 and 100 respectively

using purposive sampling method although researcher is aware about some limitations of this

method (Etikan et. al. 2016). Purposive sampling can be more realistic than randomization in terms

of time, eŠort and cost needed in ˆnding informants (Seidler 1974 & Snedecor 1939). The author

along with other recruited research assistants collected data by randomly visiting homes of citizens

and by approaching them who are voters. Not all visited homes were agreed to be surveyed. Select-

ed UPs were visited for collecting data from the elected representatives and purposefully targeting

the Chairmen (head of UP council) as they are considered as the key decision-maker. However, out

of 30 surveyed UPs 6 have no Chairmen currently due to legal actions, termination and severe

illness. In those cases, the UP Members those who are acting as Chairmen were interviewed.

Respondent's consent was adopted during interview and kept as conˆdential. A descriptive analyti-

cal method was used to analyze data for this exploratory research to understand perception of

citizens and local representatives.

The research questions are answered by the ˆndings of ˆeld survey. In a participatory budgeting

process, there are two main categories of stakeholders such as citizens and UP representatives.

EŠectiveness of participation seems to depend on these stakeholders; how they act and perform in

terms of their awareness, interest, willingness, responsibility etc. Therefore, the ˆrst research

question is answered by checking the awareness and interest of citizens as well as willingness of

UPs and by discussing the engagement mechanism under participatory budgeting process. The

second research question is answered by investigating the reasons that encourage citizens to

participate and the third research question is answered by identifying associated problems and

challenges of participation and suggesting possible measures to enhance active participation by

citizens.

During the survey separate questionnaire were used for UP respondents regardless of their

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personal demographic and socio-economic conditions. Questions were purposely created to focus

their institutional perspective. However, the survey collected the demographic features such as

age, gender, educational status and profession of citizen respondents because understanding,

awareness and activism depend greatly on these criteria.

4. Results

4.1 Demographic and socio-economic features of citizen

From the frequency analysis of citizen respondents, it is found that the male and female percen-

tage of respondents was 83 and 17 respectively. People from diŠerent ages participated in the

survey. The majority of the respondents were 2640 years old that is 62 followed by 29 from

the age group of 41-60. Respondents from both younger and elderly people were less; 4 from the

age group 1825 and 5 from the age group of 61 and above. There was diversity of their educa-

tional background. 25 was high school graduates, 21 was junior high school graduates, 13

completed higher secondary, 18 completed graduation and 12 completed post-graduation

degree. The respondents have various professional background, which is related to their educa-

tional background such as majority of them are doing small business (35) followed by teachers
(19), government and other employees (12), farmers (15). The most of the women respon-

dents are household makers (9). Others respondents are from the profession of village doctors,

religious leaders (imam), lawyers, students and mechanics (10).

4.2 Awareness and willingness of citizens and UP representatives

Citizens were asked if they are aware of the rights to participate in participatory budgeting as the

2009 law has mandated it. Majority of the citizens (68) are unaware and 32 are aware.

Moreover, out of this 32 who are aware only one-third of them (34) sometimes attended some

activities of participatory budgeting and rest two-third of them (66) never attended any meeting.

Moreover, who `attended' could not identify properly the name of the activities. 77 citizens do

not attend willingly and 50 UP respondents similarly opined that citizens have no willingness to

participate. At the same time, 64 citizen respondents have said that UP representatives do not

want to engage them.

4.3 Why citizen participates?

To answer this question, the author included open-ended question to allow the actual and diversi-

ˆed realities to be captured. Both of the categories of respondents identify the factors that play role

to encourage citizens in participation. The multiple answers are thematically summarized. The

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 Table 2 : Description of Citizen Respondents (n＝100)
Variables Description Frequency 

Gender Male 83 83

Female 17 17
Age 1825 4 4

2640 62 62
4160 29 29

61 and above 5 5

Education No Literacy 5 5
Primary 8 8

Lower Secondary 21 21
Secondary 24 24

Higher Secondary 13 13

Graduate 17 17
Post-graduate 12 12

Profession Farmer 15 15

Teacher 19 19
Government & other service 12 12

Business (small business) 35 35

Village Doctor 2 2

Imam (religious leader) 2 2

Lawyer 2 2
Student 2 2

Mechanic 2 2
Housewife 9 9

Source: Created by Author.

Table 3 : Comparison between Awareness and Attendance by Citizens

Awareness  Attendance 

Aware 32 Attend 34
Not aware 68

Source: Created by Author.

Table 4 : Willingness of Citizens and UPs

Description Interested/Willingness Not interested/Unwillingness
Citizen's response on their willingness 23 77

UP's response on citizen's willingness 50 50

Citizen's response on UP's willingness 36 64

Source: Created by Author.

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most common reasons of their participation is identiˆed by both categories of respondents are to

develop of their own communities by negotiating in project selection. 22 of citizen's respondents

and 55 of UP respondents said they want to the beneˆt of participation by contributing in their

community development. 21 citizen and 33 representative think that citizens can play role by

raising their voice and providing information where to develop ˆrst, during prioritization of the

projects. Participation is matter of citizen's responsibility. 19 citizen respondents and 20 UP

respondents answered such way. 14 citizens and 23 representatives think that citizen attend

participatory process of UP to ensure transparency and accountability.

4.4 How citizen's interest can be increased?

This open-ended question also has multiple answers both from citizen respondents and UP

respondents. The responses have similarities and dissimilarities. Here the researcher's assumption

is that each stakeholder conceptualized participation from their own perspective and suggested the

measures as well. The major common suggested measures are awareness raising, giving impor-

tance to citizen's view, providing incentives and ensuring service delivery by implementing

projects. 37 citizens and 63 UP representatives suggested for raising of awareness, 46

citizens and 10 UP representatives suggested for giving importance to citizen's view and 30

citizens and 23 UP representatives suggested for providing incentives to the participants for

Figure 2: Reasons for Citizen Participation, Source: Created by Author.

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 Figure 3: Measures for Increasing Citizen Participation. Source: Created by Author.

increasing participation. In case of above-mentioned second suggestion, UP representatives'

response is low because they did not materialize of giving importance to citizen's view.

Two other common suggestions' percentage is almost similar in case of both categories of

respondents. 11 citizen respondents and 20 UP respondents thought that there is corruption at

UP level, which should be eliminated by ensuring transparency and accountability. 12 citizens

and 7 UP representatives opined good and strong leadership could be catalytic for realizing

participation eŠectively. Some suggestions are not common by both categories of respondents. For

example, citizens did not think to suggest like increasing capacity of UP, allocating budget and

establishing eŠective monitoring system while UP respondents suggested these three measures.

The percentage of this measure are 20, 33 and 7 respectively. On the other hand, UP did not

think to suggest of giving equal opportunity to citizens during participation, keeping good relation

with the citizen doing good behavior by representatives, while citizens suggested as 12 and 42

respectively of the similar measures identiˆed by UP representatives.

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4.5 Participatory budgeting process: Where citizen participates?

In a UP, citizen are mainly participate in the participatory budgeting process. The question for

UP respondents were created in aligned with the steps of participatory budgeting of UP. The

responses of UP respondents are presented in the Table 5 as follow.

Most of the UP representatives opined that they usually implement the main steps that are un-

avoidable and related to formality of approval. 100 UP respondents responded that they perform

major ˆve steps such as informing/inviting citizen to open budget meeting (step 4), presenting

draft budget at open budget meeting and getting feedback from the citizens (step 5), approving

budget at UP general meeting (step 6), sending to UNO9 for review and opinion (step 7) and

declaring/ publishing the budget (step 8). Importantly, two steps listing (step 1) and prioritizing

the schemes (step 2) in ward meeting are crucial for ensuring citizen participation. Each of the

steps are performed by 57 UPs only. Step 9 and step 10 are on quarterly and half-yearly review,

which are also supposed to be done by the participation of citizens. Each of the steps is performed

by only 20 of UPs.

Table 5: Participatory Budgeting Processes Performed by UP

Source: Created by Author based on UP Operation Manual 2012 and Field Survey 2019

9 UNO refers as Upazilla Nirbahi O‹cer (Chief Executive of Sub-district).

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4.6 Problems and Challenges in the implementation of participatory budgeting

This open-ended question was asked only to UP respondents and received multiple answers. UP

respondents identiˆed the problems of participation of citizen under participatory budgeting. The

identiˆed problems are thematically grouped and showed in the Table 6.

Most of the UP respondents (53) identiˆed citizen's unawareness as a major problem followed

by no incentive for participants (43) and insu‹cient budget allocation (43). Interestingly, UP

respondents (40) identiˆed that UP has lack of capacity to engage citizen in the participatory

process. 37 identiˆed political interference and 27 identiˆed fraction and grouping among

citizens as problems of participation. 17 UP respondents mentioned that all level citizens cannot

be engaged in participation of budgeting and there is dominance of elite participants and 17 UP

respondents thought that UP has dependency to central budget as they have low amount of local

tax collection. 13 UP respondents identiˆed corruption as a problem followed by nepotism and

biasness in selection of participants (10) Interestingly, 7 UP respondents identiˆed citizens are

over-demanding as a problem and 7 said there is lack in implementation monitoring.

Table 6 : Problems in the Implementation of Participatory Budgeting

Problems Percentage
Unawareness of citizen 53

No incentive for citizens 43

Lack of capacity of UP representatives and o‹cials 40

Some selected citizens participate every time/political biasness/nepotism 10

Irregular participation/less interest of citizens 7

All level citizens' participation is not ensured/elite participants/non-inclusiveness 17

Fraction/grouping among citizen 27

Increased demands/expectation of citizens 7

Allocation of money is not conˆrmed for all projects in a PB/unavailable of budget/delay in
budget allocation and implementation 43

Less/no collection of local tax/not have own resources/deˆcit budget/dependency to central 17

government budget

Corruption among UP/representatives and o‹cials/non-trust on UP 13

Lack of monitoring by government 7

Political interference/pressure/no freedom of work 37

Source: Created by Author.

―  ―
5. Discussion

5.1 Role of Stakeholders: Citizen versus UP

a) Citizen's awareness is crucial

In a participatory budgeting process, citizens are the main stakeholders. Participation means a

right by which someone can express view or behavior toward the political system and governance
(Mohammad & Farzana, 2018). The UP Act 2009 has given the right to participate by citizen

through participatory budgeting mechanism. Article 4, 5, 45, 57 and 58 of the Act has established

such right for citizens to participate in the participatory budgeting process. However, the survey

result says that more than two-third (68) of citizen respondents are not aware about their rights

and less than one-third is aware (32). Disappointingly, among those who were aware of their

right to participate; only one-third of them attended some participatory processes and two-third
(66) never participated in any decision-making process of UP including participatory budgeting

(Table 3). Arguably, citizen interest and eagerness depends on the demographic and socio-

economic background. 58 citizen respondents have lower level academic degree studied up to

high school level only and 5 of them have no literacy while adult illiteracy rate of Bangladesh is

approximately 27 (UNESCO, 2018).

Moreover, maximum of the respondents has no high level professional background. 35 are

doing small business mainly the shopkeepers at village level, 15 are farmers and 9 are

homemakers. These categories of respondents likely have less understanding on participation. 50

UP respondents claimed that citizens are not interested to participate and 53 respondents (Table

6) identiˆed citizen's unawareness as a big problem. For that reason, 63 responses are in favor of

raising awareness (Figure 2) as a measure for eŠective participation. Such ˆndings are similar to

the argument of Folscher (2007). He mentioned public decision-making could be meaningful if

citizens are informed about the outcome of their participation. Therefore, the speciˆc types of infor-

mation need to be provided regularly and timely manner for increasing interest of citizens on the

beneˆt of participation.

b) Willingness and capacity of UP

Citizens are generally not aware of participation in UP's participatory budgeting process. At the

same time, their willingness is also very less. Only 23 respondents attended participatory activi-

ties by their own interest and majority of them (77) has no interest to participate even if they are

aware. 50 UP representatives also opined that citizen has no interest in participation and some-

times they need to invite and inform several times. Otherwise, they do not attend. Most important-

―  ―
ly, willingness of UP is crucial in this regard as Folscher (2007) mentions that if state actors are

willing to listen to citizen's needs and preferences the scope of meaningful participation are much

larger and similarly Goldfrank (2007) argues that success of participatory budgeting requires

strong local leadership in term of political will and ownership. The result of this study shows that

64 citizen respondents think UP has no interest to engage citizen. Out of this 64, 35 identi-

ˆed UP's unwillingness as a reason for non-participation.

At the same time, capacity of local government both human resources and systems to plan,

budget and manage is critical (Folscher, 2007). Signiˆcantly, UP should have all sorts of capacity

to facilitate and implement participatory budgeting (Shah, 2007) while it is also seen as the e‹cien-

cy of local o‹cials (Smith, 2009). According to this survey, 20 UP representatives said that UP

o‹cials including elected representatives need training to develop their facilitation skill (Figure 3).

Besides, ˆnancial capacity is also crucial as 43 suggested increasing budget and local resource for

continuous participation of citizen (Table 6). During informal discussion with the number of UP

chairmen it is understood that although UP has a big o‹ce building but they have only one adminis-

trative staŠ, the UP Secretary, who is not capable enough to manage all tasks including participa-

tion of citizen to budget making process. UP representatives are not fully salaried for performing

their duty rather they are given lump sum allowance. Many UP representatives argue that this is

the point of demotivation to work actively. UP has no own resources, as citizens are not interested

in paying tax. 17 UP respondents opined the same. These all things are related to willingness.

c) Mechanism for engagement: skipping any process leads to denial of participation

There is no speciˆc model of participatory budgeting while it varies from city to city and from

state to state (Wampler, 2007) in the modiˆed ways. There is need to carefully think through the

participatory budgeting cycle to ensure that all the stages are carefully planned and executed
(Matovu, 2007). UP participatory budgeting mechanism has also established with design of 10

deˆned steps (Figure 1). Every step has its own deˆned functions. These functions include citizens

in various activities. For example, Step no. 1 is about scheme identiˆcation and prioritization

through at ward level, should entirely done with the participation of citizens. In the UP Operational

Manual 2012, the details of arranging ward meeting and engaging process of citizen described and

it is mentioned that draft plan and budget should be made in ward meeting. Prior to the ward meet-

ing diŠerent planning meetings have to be arranged so that citizen can provide their wider opinion.

But survey ˆndings shown that 57 UP perform this ˆrst step. Other 43 UP does not organize

ward meeting that is crucial step for engaging citizen. At same time, Step no. 2 is about ˆnalization

of priorities and budget by standing committee. UP standing committee is formed by one-third

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member from citizen. Same as the step no. 1, this step is also performed by 57 and rest 43 do

not perform. From the above ˆndings, it can be argued that UP has intension to avoid citizens and

has denial tendency of citizen participation.

5.2 Reasons for participation in the participatory budgeting process

Participation yields result (Folscher, 2007) but citizens need to know the possible beneˆts of it
(Schugurensky, 2004) not only in broader aspects of beneˆt but also in some practical aspects that

include poor and excluded citizens (Moynihan, 2007) and directly contribute in development. Simi-

lar to these statements, the survey result of this research clearly shows that citizen participates in

the participatory budgeting with a view to developing their community (Figure 2). They can play

role in negotiation over the priority selection and budget allocation. Both citizens respondents and

UP respondents opined that they wish to get beneˆt by their participation which is 22 and 55.

Moreover, 21 citizen thinks that they can contribute by providing better information on the situa-

tion of their localities while 33 UP representative said citizens could play role by raising their

voice in the participatory budgeting meetings. A substantial portion from both categories of respon-

dents thought that citizens attend because participation is their responsibility. The surveyed

respondents (14 citizens and 23 UP respondents) opined that ensuring transparency and

accountability as an important reason of their participation.

5.3 Problems and challenges that hinder participation

The ˆndings regarding the major problems of implementation of participation under participato-

ry budgeting are discussed here based on the survey result, informal discussion with the number of

UP Chairmen10 for example and practical observation in the ˆeld level. According to the response

from citizens, it is found that more than two-third (68) citizens are not aware of their rights of

participation and more than two-third (66) of them never attended any participatory activities of

UP. Moreover, almost 80 opined that they have no interest for attending. Two-third UP

representatives echoed the similar type of opinion and few of them argued also that citizens have

ignorance to participate in UP budgeting process.

The open-ended question was asked only to the UP respondents to identify the problems and

challenges from their institutional perspective. More than half (53) of the UP respondents identi-

10 UP Chairmen of No. 2 Golapgonj UP under Golapgonj Upazila of Sylhet District, No. 1 Mollargaon UP under
South Surma Upazilla of Sylhet District, No. 9 Daudpur UP under South Surma Upazila of Sylhet District,
No. 1 Gulishakhali UP under Amtoli Upazilla of Barguna District, No. 10 Noltona UP under Barguna Sadar
Upazilla of Barguna District were interviewed informally.

―  ―
ˆed unawareness of citizen as the main problem. At the same time, they also has less interest to

participate in the participatory budgeting process. But scholar such as Folscher (2007) identiˆed

citizen interest as prerequisite of participation. The better information produces better results and

enhances the quality of decision-making.

Citizens do not get direct incentives for their participation. As UP respondents said that citizens

suppose to participate voluntarily as UP has no provision two provide citizens lump sum amount for

their transportation cost. For that reason, citizens do not feel interest to attend participatory budg-

eting meetings in the regular basis spending money from their own pocket. At the same time, local

government o‹cials should have substantial capacity and technical qualiˆcations. The overall func-

tional capacity of UP o‹cials is low, as they do not have training opportunity. UP has a crisis of

sta‹ng while there is only two staŠs for doing all duties including facilitation of participatory budg-

eting. Two of the ˆve UP respondents identiˆed the lack of capacity of representatives.

In the local government of Bangladesh, elite capture is a major barrier to citizen engagement
(Waheduzzaman et. al., 2018). This study also reveals the similar truth that only few pre-selected

elites who are wealthy and politically powerful used to participate and play substantial role in deci-

sion-making. In many cases, some politically selected people and people those are in favor of UP

representatives attend all time. A substantial portion of UP respondents opined the same. Although

participatory budgeting is claimed as the inclusive process of governance (Gilman, 2016), the

survey result shows that all level citizens cannot be included irrespective of age, gender, ethnicity,

disability, race and socio-economic background. For that reason, it can be argued that UP's

participatory budgeting process is not inclusive as a whole. As citizens have less interest even many

of them have no interest to participate, their participation is not a regular fashion. Moreover, there

are visible fraction among the citizens of diŠerent areas, groups and political a‹liation. As

participatory budgeting creates scope for fulˆlling demands, citizens' expectations increase and

they become more demanding which is a negative eŠect of participation. One of the major concerns

in such participatory budgeting process is that the allocation of budget is not conˆrmed or budget

allocation delays even after completion of whole process. UP has a resource constraint, as it cannot

collect substantial amount of local tax. Citizens are also reluctant to provide tax in regular basis.

Therefore, UPs are usually dependent on central government ˆscal transfer through block grant

and annual development programs. But su‹cient revenue strength and available discretionary

funding to mitigate citizens' demand in participatory budgeting process is important. Among the

other problems, interesting ˆnding is that UP representatives are recognizing existence of corrup-

tion at diŠerent level of UP even among the representatives and o‹cials. Some UP representatives

argued that there should have some monitoring authority so that transparency and accountability

―  ―
can be ensured. Some UP representatives thought that due to political interference they could not

take schemes or projects independently under participatory budgeting.

5.4 Possible measures for enhancing participation

Raising awareness and capacity leads to successful participation in budget making process as

identiˆed by both categories of respondents, they feel that awareness, and capacity enhances

decision-making quality. Survey ˆndings show the other important measures such as ensuring

delivery of basic public services that are usually provided by UP. At the same time, as citizens are

main stakeholders as well as beneˆciaries of a participatory budgeting process they need to give

importance in all stages of participation. In these sorts of participation, it is necessary to provide

opportunity to all segments of citizens for ensuring inclusiveness, which is considered one of

the important democratic goods of innovation (Smith, 2009). Moreover, good, strong and

participatory-minded leadership is important for continuation and sustainability of participatory

budgeting.

6. Conclusion

This paper discussed the stakeholders' role in ensuring citizen participation of under practice of

participatory budgeting. This paper also identiˆed the reasons that encourage and revealed the con-

straints that discourage participation along with identifying possible measure for addressing the

discouraging factors that are prevailing at UP level. The previous studies did not consider the role

of citizens and UP. No previous study investigates the reasons of citizen participation and non-

participation using primary data. In this context, this study was undertaken using survey method

by semi-structured questionnaires containing open-ended and close-ended questions to know the

understanding, opinion and perception of citizens and UP representatives. Citizens are the main

stakeholders and beneˆciary of participatory budgeting and they were the primary target popula-

tion of this research. UP representatives are considered as the secondary target population. Survey

ˆndings show that general citizen's understanding and eagerness still far beyond as it requires for

making participation eŠective. At the same time, citizens participation is denied by UP's unwilling-

ness. Both of the citizens and UP respondents thought that participation is important for fulˆlling

demand, negotiating project priorities and fostering local development. But UP respondents face

challenges and constraints for engaging citizens. Citizens and UPs desire remedies for overcoming

challenges by suggesting the possible measures. The discussion of this research mainly rounded

with the above-mentioned notions. The functional eŠectiveness of participatory budgeting through

ˆnancial allocation and performance, physical achievement, number of citizen attend are not

―  ―
discussed in this paper. The concluding remarks of this study is that although government made

citizen participation mandatory for UP participatory budgeting mechanism, there are still gaps in

participation due to citizen's unawareness, UP's unwillingness and many other associated problems

and challenges. Although it was assumed that there would be variation in responses of two selected

study areas but from both areas citizen's and UP's responses were almost similar.

Despite the practical ˆndings, there were di‹culties in data collection, as many citizens did not

agree to respond and participate in this research. Citizens might not feel comfort to answer the

questions in front of others. But it had to be done face-to-face interview for getting response quickly

and completing survey within the limited time frame. There are limitations in literature in the areas

of discussing problems of engaging citizens in the participatory budgeting process of UP.

As this case study did not consider the performance of participatory using input-output method,

further study is required developing speciˆc indicators for analysis in this regard. Further studies

also could consider diŠerent categories of respondents such as who participates and who does not

participate and segregate the analysis why participates and why does not participate in UP

participatory budgeting process by including many other variables. There is also scope to further in

depth study selecting case of a single UP using diŠerent sampling method.

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