Citizen’s budget is a process in which the inhabitants not only decide to allocate a part of the budget of the city of Krakow. It is a process thanks to which they can, above all, directly influence the city by prioritising and implementing the needs of their local communities. Residents know their needs best, and the civic budget is a tool for meeting them – a tool that supports the building of local social capital and the search for innovation. Citizen’s budget is an excellent tool for education about self-government – it is an element of a specific philosophy of self-government functioning – as a community of authorities and inhabitants of a given territorial unit, cooperating for its development. A participatory budget is a process during which residents decide to spend part of the city budget: by submitting projects, discussing them and then voting for them. The projects, which will receive the support of the residents, are carried out by the Mayor of the City of Krakow.
The 5th edition of the Citizen’s budget has already taken place in Krakow, under which over 450 projects selected by residents for a total amount of over 50 million zlotys were planned for implementation. The next call for proposals for the civic budget of the City of Krakow will take place in 2019. The rules of the next, VI edition, will be established in the fourth quarter of 2018.
This post is also available in: polski Ukrainian English Русский