Participatory Municipal Planning

Local planning is the area in which social funds have found it easier to integrate their procedures with the functioning of local governments.  More and more social funds are adopting this form of planning. In some countries, social funds themselves have piloted and/or mainstreamed participatory planning guidelines (Albania, Honduras, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Zambia); in others they have adapted their procedures to new legislation mandating participatory planning (Bolivia, Peru).

The main advantages of having participatory plans done at the municipal (rather than only at the community) level are:

• It allows scaling up and mainstreaming of community driven development principles into government planning at the local level, leveraging not just the social fund resources but local governments’ resources as well.
• The territorial boundaries of a local government usually capture the network and economies of scale characteristics of most local investments (such as tertiary roads, health posts, primary schools, etc).
• Quality of plans and investment improves through greater coordination of sectoral investments (by reducing incentives for multiple and parallel planning and funding systems), and a better connection between community preferences and technical sector expertise.
• Increased sustainability of investments by linking them with local governments.
• Greater transparency and accountability of public decision-making and management.  A good planning methodology allows all communities the opportunity to participate, follows transparent criteria and processes for prioritization, and includes mechanisms to hold local government accountable for plan implementation.

Some good practice principles to keep in mind when promoting participatory municipal planning are:

• An indicative budget is needed to act as a hard budget constraint that introduces realism in the prioritization process.  Otherwise, the plan will suffer from the “Christmas tree” syndrome –a long wish list of demands and expectations without any clear prospect of being addressed.
• The size of the capital budget should be relatively high to provide sufficient incentives for meaningful participation.  Participating is a cost for poor people, and if the chances of receiving a benefit are too low, it does not justify their investment of time and effort.
• The budget should have flexibility to allocate investments across sectors in order to respond to local preferences.  At least some of the funds should be untied.  It should include not only the social fund resources but also local government’s funds.  Avoid making a plan just for the social fund/community-driven development program.
• The methodology should contain procedures to target poor people and vulnerable groups and to assess the potential impact of the plan in reducing poverty.