A 3-day municipal budget training program was conducted by the Institute for Popular Democracy (IPD), in cooperation with the Center for Agrarian Reform, Empowerment and Transformation, Inc. (CARET, Inc.), for municipal and barangay officials and community leaders from the municipality of Victoria, Laguna last February 27 to March 1 at the Ciudad Christhia Resort in San Mateo, Rizal. Entitled “Democratizing the Municipal Budget”, the training program was the first in a series of 3 targeted piloting seminars on civic participation and the municipal budget. A second seminar is being planned for June, this time for the NGO members of the Barangay-Bayan Governance Consortium (better known as the BATMAN consortium), of which IPD is part.
The training program tackled topics such as the importance of citizens’ participation in the local budget, the formal and informal institutions governing the budget process, and basic budgeting principles and concepts for budget analysis. A discussion of actual practices in citizens’ participation in local budgeting, highlighting the institutional design of innovations, was also included. The event was capped by a planning workshop that enabled seminar participants to map out respective strategies for opening up the space for civic participation in Victoria’s municipal budget process.
Uploaded 12 May 2003.