---
title: Participatory Budgeting
last_checked: "2026-05-29"
---

A democratic process in which community members directly decide how to allocate part of a public budget — most commonly used by local governments, but also applied in schools, housing authorities, and other institutions.

Participatory budgeting (PB) originated in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 1989, where residents began allocating portions of the city budget directly. It has since spread to thousands of cities globally, taking many forms: from open assemblies where residents propose and vote on projects, to digital platforms where citizens submit ideas and rank priorities.

The key design tension is between accessibility (keeping participation open and representative) and quality (ensuring proposals are feasible and decisions are informed). Different implementations resolve this differently — some use sortition for the final allocation panel, others use open online voting, others use hybrid deliberative-voting processes.

## Platforms

Several open-source platforms have been built specifically for participatory budgeting deployments:

- **[Decidim](../organisations/decidim.md)** — used by Barcelona and others for PB alongside other participatory mechanisms
- **[Consul Democracy](../organisations/consul-democracy.md)** — Madrid's platform, includes a full PB module
- **[Ethelo](../organisations/ethelo.md)** — Canada-focused, runs the Citizen Budget tool used by 100+ municipalities


## See also

- [Direct Democracy](direct-democracy.md)
- [Citizens' Assembly](citizens-assembly.md)
- [E-Government](e-government.md)
- [Decidim](../organisations/decidim.md)
- [Consul Democracy](../organisations/consul-democracy.md)
- [Ethelo](../organisations/ethelo.md)
- [Participatory Budgeting Project](../organisations/participatory-budgeting-project.md)
- Wikipedia: [Participatory budgeting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_budgeting)
