PORTO Alegre hosted more than 200 representatives of local and regional governments from over 35 countries in the UCLG Executive Bureau meetings, which took place from 10-12 June 2015. The meetings focused on the Post-2015 development programme, the New Urban Agenda of Habitat III and the Financing for Sustainable Development as well as the new international framework for the fight against climate change (COP21).
At the ExBu meeting, the Secretary General Dr. Bernadia made an appeal on the recent earthquake in Nepal and requested the Board to extend the support on the mid- and long-term reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts that could be done through the Disaster Task Force of UCLG in which UCLG ASPAC is part of.
The next ExBu meeting is scheduled to be in Kazan, Russia in June 2016. While the next World Council is to be held in conjunction with the Paris Climate Conference (COP 21) in December 2015.
Secretary General of ASPAC also used her visit to learn about the famous Participatory Budgeting (PB) of Porto Alegre. It was started in late eighties as an innovative and revolutionary system to formulate and follow-up the municipal budget.
The system has allowed the people to define and decide the municipality’s amounts of income, expense, priorities, plans and action to be developed by the Government, through debate and consultation process.
Through the PB, accountability of the municipality of Porto Alegre has increased as the system was able to avoid corruption and mishandling of public funds. In addition, the people’s participation has provided efficient spending. The experience of Porto Alegre has inspired and motivated other cities in Brazil and overseas to establish the Participative Budget system.
