The Communications Strategy behind Participatory Budgeting in Paris
Citizens often have little say in municipal budgeting. This means that the valuable knowledge they have of their own city is often not incorporated into decision-making processes, making citizens feel alienated from their administration. In Paris, the Mayor launched an impressive participatory budgeting campaign in 2014, earmarking EUR 426m for this, 5% of the City’s total investment budget.
Participatory budgeting projects can directly help tackle intractable issues by giving citizens the chance to become problem solvers: citizens can propose, design, discuss and decide upon the projects which matter most to them.
Identifying needs
Participatory budgeting is an increasingly popular method of involving citizens in administrative decision-making processes. The central principle of participatory budgeting is to involve citizens in deciding how money should be spent. Pioneered by Porto Alegre since 1989, it has since been used by cities such as New York and Lisbon.
To date, the current administration in Paris has launched two participatory budgeting exercises, the first one in early 2014. In this exercise, 15 proposals and a budget of EUR 20 million were opened up to a public vote. Citizens chose which proposals mattered most to them and should therefore be prioritized. Over 41,000 votes were counted, 60% of which were cast online. Nine of the 15 projects were later approved, with some launched earlier this year.
After the success of this first exercise, a second, more ambitious and open call for ideas was launched in early 2015. Citizens could submit any idea they had, as long as their proposals: addressed the overall ‘public good’, belonged to areas governed by the municipal administration, and did not include operational costs. All residents of Paris — including children — could submit proposals, regardless of age or nationality.
The call for ideas was launched on January 14. When it closed two months later, over 5,115 proposals had been submitted by a total of over 2,700 participating citizens and organizations. Some of the most popular proposals included: promoting table tennis in the west of Paris, floating gardens on the Seine, and promoting sustainable development in schools through gardening.
Here follows a breakdown of issues addressed in proposals:
- Living environment (25%)
- Environmental sustainability (15%)
- Transport and mobility (13%)
- Culture (8%)
- Education and youth (6%)
- Sport (5%)
After submission, proposals were aggregated and reviewed for technical and budgetary feasibility by specialists within the administration. This included filtering projects that involved spaces that did not fall under local government responsibility, such as the public transport system.
A short list of feasible project proposals was released in June 2015 with a city-wide open vote held between the 10th and 20th of September to decide which projects will receive part of the €75m budget. Half of this budget will go to projects relevant to the whole city, and half will be divided between the 20 city districts.
Communication strategy
Participatory budgeting requires effective communication and a properly informed and engaged citizenry. The 2015 participatory budgeting process described above was destined to ensure both online and offline citizen engagement at every step of the process.
Online
The online communication strategy was centered on an informative and user-friendly platform with clear and accessible language. The platform was built not only used to submit proposals, but also to encourage citizen debate.
Once a proposal was submitted, it was open for public discussion on the platform for three weeks, during which the proposal could be modified. This encouraged citizens to identify and cooperate with peers who shared similar interest and visions for the city. One of the most popular proposals aimed at promoting table tennis in the west of Paris, received over 405 comments and 505 ‘likes’.
Upon closing, the platform totaled:
- 5,115 projects proposed
- 2,722 project proposers
- 18,000 accounts made
- 16,000 comments (+- 3.4/project)
- 32,000 likes (+- 6.7/project)
- 565,000 visitors
- Combined total of almost 1,000,000 page views
This was complemented with a social media campaign to help build buzz. Twitter was used to disperse a series of accessible infographics, such as those shown later. Participation from high-level political figures such as the City Mayor and celebrities also helped draw attention to the exercise. Social media was particularly useful to get ‘30-somethings’ involved — a demographic usually underrepresented in public meetings.
Offline
The online strategy was accompanied by a strong offline presence. This is because of the current Mayor’s championing of universal participation, meaning that citizens without the capital or skills required to access online voting platforms should also be able to participate.
The offline presence included:
- Weekly, in-person meetings staffed by city officials to help citizens draft their proposals and calculate estimated costs
- Offline proposal submission and voting
- Discussion groups at municipal offices to evaluate and comment on project proposals.
These measures were particularly instrumental to fostering communication channels with elderly residents. It also provided a chance for citizens to develop the skills required in drafting a successful project proposal.
This offline cooperation can be noted in project proposal submissions:
- 3,620 projects were submitted by individual citizens
- 1,494 by collectives, including:
- 609 associations and societies
- 401 neighborhood council
- 432 other collectives
- 52 companies
Internal working
The unprecedented level of citizen engagement highlighted above meant the administration had to learn to work differently. While the project was initially launched by the mayor’s office, the popularity and subsequent scale of the project led to the deputy mayor being drafted in to lead participation, while the offices for local development, for smart cities, and for communications also came on board.
In addition to the Paris-wide budget run by the central administration, each district-level administration had the choice of whether or not to also involve district-level budgets. In 2015, each of the 20 districts took part in the city-wide participatory budgeting exercise.
To ensure transparency in the short-listing procedure, all project proposals rejected by the feasibility selection committee were accompanied by a reasoned argument made publically available. The selection committee is made up of representatives from all levels of municipal government as well as members of the opposition.
Engaging citizens for the advantage of all
The central principle of participatory budgeting is to let citizens decide how their taxes should be spent. This has positive results for citizens, the city administration, and the city as a whole.
Firstly, participatory budgeting involves citizens directly into the decisions which affect them most. Creating a space for citizens to submit and discuss ideas helps stimulate citizens to become entrepreneurial problem solvers by encouraging citizens to think about what affects them most, and how they would change it. Having a tangible input into how decisions are made also improves citizens’ sense of ownership of the city and its administration.
Not only can citizens contribute to shaping the agenda and deciding what will be done, but city officials also get a rich overview of which issues Parisians are most inspired by and keen to solve. The project therefore doubles as an excellent stakeholder consultation network. This communication network brings together the in-depth knowledge of citizens’ daily experiences, as well as their creative problem solving capacities.
Citizen integration and engagement with authorities is particularly important in Paris, which has historically faced issues of social cohesion. This included a strained relationship between city authorities and disenfranchised residents, with repeated criticisms that governance processes were not open to citizens. The participatory budgeting exercises helped improve cross-partisan cooperation, bringing interaction between citizens of all ages, origins, and modes of living, encouraging an exchange between the diverse visions they may have for the city.
Takeaways
The participatory budgeting program in Paris is an excellent example of how communication can be used to engage citizens in government. This particular project allowed citizens to cooperatively discuss which issues they would like to change, and how. The City could identify which needs citizens prioritized most, as well as a range of possible solutions.
