In late 2014, Paris (FR) Mayor Anne Hidalgo set out to deliver on her ambition to turn the city into a more collaborative one, where residents play an active role in the ideas and decisions which shape its future.
The first step was to introduce a participatory budgeting programme. In 2014, over 40,000 people voted on 15 proposals put forward by the City Council. In the second year, the residents of Paris suggested over 5,000 ideas and more than 67,000 people voted. In 2016, the City has decided to reserve a proportion exclusively for the most deprived areas of the city.
Another proportion was reserved for spending on youth and education projects, with schools being encouraged to participate and children's votes determining how that money is spent. Those children in turn may have educated and encouraged their families to take part. In October 2016, over 158,000 people voted in the latest round, a 39% increase on 2015, deciding how to spend 100 million euros.

The Participatory Budget asks people to come up with solutions to problems in their community, on which they are the experts and in which they are highly invested. The nature of the process gives ample opportunity for the plurality of voices to be heard, while also encouraging collaboration and consensus building among participants with similar agendas, and finally giving everyone the opportunity to vote for those ideas which matter most to them.

5% of the capital budget of the city is dedicated to participatory budgeting. Thus the practice means transferring to citizens the design and selection of projects representing a public investment of 100 million euros a year.

Projects submitted by citizens have to be feasible and have to meet three criteria: they have to be about capital, have to be related to cities’ competencies and they have to fall under general interest.

In Paris, we have 21 PBs: 1 PB per district for local projects, 1 PB for the entire city for major or replicable projects, one PB for schools and one for social housing.

Lastly, the Paris Participatory Budget is a year-long process with four main steps. Firstly we stimulate ideas and projects and collect them on our digital platform. Secondly civil servants study the feasibility and evaluate the cost for each project. If a project is not feasible, the sponsor of the project receives a personal answer visible on the online platform. The third stage is the campaign and the vote. Finally the city implements the selected projects.

The Paris Participatory Budget contributes to sustainable urban living since it is a major call from inhabitants. This learning is clear when observing the projects they submit and the ones they choose during the vote.

As an example, there were eight winning projects on the Parisian scale in 2015: one project devoted to bicycle lane development (8 million euros), one project targeting a pedestrian friendly city (8 million euros), one project focusing on the reinvestment of our green belt (old railway line) for 7.5 million euros, one project that aims at fighting poverty (4.4 million euros), two projects on green spaces, including rooftops and urban agriculture (4.3 million euros), one project to develop drinking water fountains in Paris (2 million euros) and a 1 million euro project dedicated to cleaning improvement of the city.

The Paris Participatory Budget is based on an integrated and participative approach: the policy is inherently participative and coordinated by the head of the City. It involves all departments in feasibility studies and implementation. Innovative digital tools have been developed to support cross-sectoral cooperation and a dedicated team is facilitating these cooperative ways of working.

Also it is based on cooperation between districts and central city offices as a way to articulate global and local scales.

In the initial 2014 pilot over 41,000 votes were cast in total. Nine projects were selected. The 2015 iteration represented a significant expansion of the initiative. Over 5,000 ideas were proposed, of which 3,000 passed the initial basic criteria. In the final stage 67,000 votes (+/- 3 per cent of the population) were cast and 188 projects accepted. In 2016, participation rose with 158,964 people voting on a final selection of 219 ideas, from an initial 3,158 proposals. The number of participants was boosted by just over 66,000 children who took part in a special ballot to allocate €10 million reserved for projects in schools and colleges.

Budgeting process is also delivering tangible outcomes: more than a quarter of 416 winning projects have been delivered such as new public gardens, co-working spaces, renovated schools, pedestrian areas, sport facilities, etc. This has brought new ways of working inside the city’s offices based on more cooperation and new kind of relationship between civil servants and citizens.

Finally, the Participatory Budget is also a support for public innovation: the project named “shelters for homeless” has received 21000 votes in 2016, which is the highest number of votes among projects. It is a call for the City to find innovative ways to fight poverty and welcome migrants.

We are regularly invited to present Participatory Budget by other cities: since December 2016, we have been travelling to conferences hosted by the cities of Kyoto and Mexico. Delegates from Glasgow and Tallinn came to Paris and we were invited to go to Edinburgh to present our findings to parliamentarians and local authorities.

Also, Paris has been awarded Pilot City by the Open Government Platform last December, as a result of its participatory budget. We see these many invitations to present what we have learned, factors for success and ongoing challenges. We believe it shows other European (and worldwide) cities’ willingness to implement their own Participatory Budget.

From 2007 to 2013, the city of Murcia (ES) has developed an urban project which consists of the regeneration of the Espíritu Santo district using an integrated approach. The approach has been carried out in 3 strategic scopes:

1. Improving the physical space;
2. Improving the social and cultural environment;
3. Improving the economic environment.

The procedures and methods employed involve the need to establish a close inter-correlation between environmental efficiency, technological innovation, knowledge and know-how, and the creation and consolidation of stable mechanisms for social and citizen participation.
By consolidating the equality perspective in all areas during the different phases, the neighbourhood became liveable again, opportunities went up, crime down, and the citizens took an interest in their environment.

In almost all of the actions, there is a special focus on ICT, minorities and improving work-life balance:

• Growth and quality in employability by improving professional skills (occupational training) trough integrated itineraries;
• Promoting learning, entrepreneurism and diversifying the economy towards emerging activities with a higher technological content;
• Helping create and consolidate companies, economic incentives, job insertion: diagnosis, development plan and accompaniment for labour insertion, etc.;
• Training and awareness of education, environment, equality and health;
• ICT as an element for promotion and innovation, as well as in the family and educational environment, with improvement of equipment and infrastructures;
• Increasing environmental performance;
• Territorial and environmental sustainability by increasing the collection of waste;
• Cohesion and social welfare, improving relations between educational centres and students’ families, reinforcing institutional capacity;
• Improving quality and effectiveness in teaching: learning as a factor of enrichment, growth and a key element of integration and reinforcing educational specialisation of teachers;
• Specific actions to improve access and enjoyment of culture and leisure, spaces, school reinforcement, free Internet;
• Classrooms, information points and municipal WiFi;
• Placement of solar panels and thermal installations, low consumption public lighting, etc.;
• A local administration closer to the citizens (flexible, effective and efficient), etc.

Regarding the URBACT principles, the project focuses directly on all three items:

• Employability, skill training, integration itineraries, ICT capacitation;
• Ethnic minorities (immigrant and gipsy population) in risk of exclusion;
• Reducing carbon footprint, waste management, tackling water and energy consumption.

The intervention demonstrates an integrated approach to sustainable development by road-mapping realistic solutions to complex problems, working shoulder to shoulder with the community of the district. During the project, we strived and succeeded in identifying social, economic and environmental actions engaging the stakeholders to be the ones to identify and propose solutions to the problems they faced in their neighbourhood.

Proposals and commitment, which were achieved throughout a participatory process marked by the strong involvement of local stakeholders driving change, collaboration across the local (authority) spectrum and the development and implementation of real solutions.

Coordination with local partners via a citizen and stakeholder engagement programme, centred around involving the district and incentivising residents to take part in the creation of a customised plan to first identify and then address the problems.

Stakeholders in the participation process:

• The municipality of Murcia (housing, culture, social services, education, health, information society, youth and employment and socio-economic data);
• The Local Municipal Board, NGOs, neighbourhood, cultural, youth and parents associations, pastoral council, representatives of minorities and groups at risk of social exclusion (in this case the important gipsy collective of the district), as well as individual citizens;
• Municipal and regional business organisations, regional government (especially education and housing), ALEM (Municipal Energy Agency), the two schools in the neighbourhood, and other entities. The latter through consulting and giving advice, managing assigned actions/activities, and participating in the internal monitoring and evaluation during all phases of the project.

The citizen participation project was conducted through meetings, direct contact and questionnaires leading to a draft proposal (actions, improvements, activities, etc.), which was presented to all stakeholders, after which feedback was initiated to further improve the project centred on the dialogue with citizens.

The neighbourhood became liveable again: as the crime rate decreased, the citizens took interest in their environment and opportunities for culture, sports and leisure. Furthermore, it fostered an enlargement of public space and the improvement of the environment. We also took the opportunity to remodel squares and streets and introduce urban art. It allowed us to recondition the quality of cultural, sports, educational as well as social facilities to promote community development and transform the area into an attractive part of the city, with a special focus on ICT, performing arts, music and culture.

This regeneration project also included the adaptation of classrooms for artistic teaching, a fully equipped training centre for social inclusion as well as a centre for artistic and cultural production. We added underground trash containers and improved the illumination of the neighbourhood.

Socially speaking, we created a family support service and self-help groups which self-manage and promote coexistence and environmental education on the recycling and reuse of waste. Awareness training on equal opportunities and non-discrimination has been built up, as well as education and training to access employment in dance, music, theatre and video. We aimed at providing ICT, audio-visual production, soundtracks for video, photography direction, video art, sound and lighting for shows, fashion design, hairdressing, make-up artists and more, for all ages.

The intervention in the “el Barrio del Espírito Santo” was directed at tackling challenges that a lot of European cities are facing every day. Murcia is proud to say that this urban project has been an amazing success. The practice is in every way worthy of being called a good practice, and we would gladly share our experience, which complies with the core values of effectiveness, efficiency and relevance.

The project is perfectly sub-dividable (tackling the problems in their totality or tackling any number of problems addressed by the project). Social integration and exclusion, economic and labour insecurity and instability, poverty and conflict in the coexistence of residents, delinquency, and a poorly-educated and low-skilled population are all general problems one expects to find in every city, to some extent, and there is tangible evidence that this project impacts and improves the quality of life in the neighbourhood.

The project offers clear and tangible solutions with a high degree of transferability, relatively easy to adapt and implement, making it a sustainable and affordable practice which cities can easily adapt to their local context, as the entire process is documented, including all evaluation and monitoring to understand our success. We consider it to be an integrated approach to urban development leading to direct compliance with the objectives that our project set out to achieve.