Citizen Participation in Local Development: What is the Answer to Participatory Budgeting in Cote d’ivoire?

Abstract

After 45 years, decentralization, which aroused much enthusiasm in Côte d'Ivoire in the 1980s, is still struggling to achieve the desired inclusive local development. The expectations and needs expressed by the local population are still not taken into account by elected officials in development actions. What reveals the challenges of local governance: crisis of legitimacy, decline in financial resources and especially the challenge of action efficiency that requires the participation of actors. How can local populations, marginalized by the discourse of local elected officials, contribute to decision-making that affects them in development projects? The objective of this study is to show that the Participatory Budget is an appropriate tool for citizen participation in the face of the communication deficit between the different actors of local development. The methodology is based on secondary data, including case studies and an analysis of work related to participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and Yakassé-Attobrou, Côte d’Ivoire. To this is added information collected from 229 heads of household in Taabo and 327 in Alépé. Then interviews with municipal authorities in 2008 and 2014. The results show that the participatory budget, contextualized and applied as a tool for democratic debate in local affairs management, is an appropriate instrument to identify development actions to be carried out, as was the case in Porto Alegre in Brazil and in Yakassé-Attobrou in Côte d'Ivoire. This has facilitated the realization of equipment that corresponds to the needs expressed by the population in Yakassé-Attobrou.The popularization of this citizen participation mechanism will avoid the gap between municipal investment and the needs expressed by the populations of Alépé and Taabo. However, its effectiveness depends on the willingness of elected officials to engage in transparent and inclusive decision-making processes.