Porto Alegre, 1989: When Residents Decided Where Public Money Went

TL;DR: In 1989, Porto Alegre invents participatory budgeting: residents decide directly on a portion of public spending. Within ten years, running water goes from 75% to 98% of households, the health budget triples, infant mortality falls by 20%. Since then, 11,500 cities around the world have adapted the model — with variable results but a constant principle: when the poorest decide, they prioritise what they actually need.

Porto Alegre, 1989. Olívio Dutra has just been elected mayor of a Brazilian city of 1.2 million inhabitants. In the peripheral neighbourhoods, thousands of families have no running water. Roads are unpaved. Public money exists — but it disappears into clientelist networks that rarely direct it where it is most needed.

His decision is simple in principle, radical in its implications: he invites residents to decide themselves on the allocation of part of the municipal budget. Not a consultation, not a poll — neighbourhood assemblies where every citizen sets priorities, arbitrates, and decides. This is the birth of participatory budgeting (PB).

What Ten Years of Data Prove

The results, documented by the World Resources Institute in 2018, are clear. From 1988 to 1997:

• Water and sanitation connections rose from 75% to 98% of households
• The health and education budget went from 13% (1985) to nearly 40% (1996)
• The number of schools quadrupled since 1986
• Infant mortality fell by around 20%

This last figure is not a coincidence. A study by Sónia Gonçalves (2014) published in World Development, covering hundreds of Brazilian municipalities, established the causal link: municipalities that adopt PB allocate more to health infrastructure and healthcare — and record a measurable reduction in infant mortality. The mechanism has a striking logic: when the poorest residents decide on priorities, they choose water, healthcare, schools. Not ornamental fountains.

11,500 Cities — and Yet Most People Have Never Heard of It

Porto Alegre did not keep the model to itself. In the early 1990s, delegations from around the world came to observe. Cities in Latin America, then Europe, then Asia adapted the principle to their own contexts. By 2024, Wikipedia counts more than 11,500 PB processes globally; the Participatory Budgeting Project counts more than 7,000 (the difference reflects counting methodologies). Both figures point to the same reality: a worldwide movement.

In Paris, since 2014, more than 23,912 ideas have been submitted, 1,345 voted on, and 3,500 projects completed. In Scotland, the national government has made it mandatory: at least 1% of local authority budgets must be subject to PB — in two years, 97,000 citizens participated. In New York, since 2012, residents have directed $210 million across 706 projects.

What Porto Alegre’s Story Also Teaches Us

Porto Alegre is not a model without limits. In 2017, after twenty-eight years of existence, the city suspended its process when the municipal majority changed. Without sustained political commitment, a PB dismantles itself. Other limits are documented by the Open Government Partnership and BMC Public Health:

• In some European cities, participation did not exceed 0.1% of residents
• With too modest budgets, changes remain marginal
• Organised groups can capture assemblies to the detriment of the most vulnerable
• Rigorous evidence remains concentrated on Brazil — transfers to other contexts are less documented

These limits do not invalidate the model. They simply say that a PB works when three conditions are met: genuine political commitment, real (not symbolic) resources, and active facilitation to include the most marginalised voices.

What You Can Do

Hundreds of French communes are experimenting with participatory budgeting, often under different names (citizen budget, participatory project call). Three entry points:

1. Check if your town has a process — a search for “budget participatif + [your town name]” usually works.
2. If yes, participate: assemblies and online votes are generally open to all residents, without prior registration.
3. If not, press your elected officials: organisations like Démocratie Ouverte support local authorities in setting up these processes.

Porto Alegre proved in ten years what many considered utopian: when the poorest residents have real decision-making power, they make choices that experts should have made long ago. This is not populism — it’s democracy that works.

Sources

• World Resources Institute — Porto Alegre: Participatory Budgeting and the Challenge of Sustaining Transformative Change — verified 2026-05-03
• Gonçalves S. (2014). The Effects of Participatory Budgeting on Municipal Expenditures and Infant Mortality in Brazil — World Development — verified 2026-05-03
• Participatory Budgeting Project — About PB — verified 2026-05-03
• Participatory Budgeting Project — Participatory Budgeting in NYC — verified 2026-05-03
• City of Paris — Budget Participatif: 10 ans de réalisations — verified 2026-05-03
• PB Scotland — 97,000 voters: Community Choices 2017/18 — verified 2026-05-03
• gov.scot — Participatory budgeting — verified 2026-05-03
• Open Government Partnership — Participatory Budgeting: Does Evidence Match Enthusiasm? — verified 2026-05-03
• Campbell M et al. (2018). The impact of participatory budgeting on health and wellbeing — BMC Public Health — verified 2026-05-03
• Wikipedia — Participatory budgeting — verified 2026-05-03

See also: Porto Alegre: when residents decide how their city is built

• When Residents Control Public Budgets, the Most Vulnerable Benefit Most