Participatory Budgeting as a Mechanism for Realizing Local Democracy in the Maghreb Countries (Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco)

Abstract

Local communities play an important role in national economic development in general and local development in particular, striving to achieve the well-being of citizens in all fields and ensuring the stability of society.To achieve this goal, local communities adopt policies and plans to manage their financial resources obtained, but sometimes they may fail to achieve the desired results due to their inability to manage those revenues independently. This has led to the erosion of citizens’ trust in local and national government authorities in general, which has prompted governments in different countries to move toward adopting new methods in the local management of public expenditures and in the formulation of public decisions in general. These methods embody a democratic government policy in a participatory manner, based on effectively involving citizens in the formulation of public decisions and the management of public expenditures, through the application of participatory democracy by means of various tools in managing local public utilities, the most important of which is the participatory budget. This has been adopted by Maghreb countries, either by stipulating it in their various laws or by ensuring its actual implementation in the public policies of local communities.Through this research paper, we will study the subject of participatory budgeting as a mechanism for embodying local democracy in the Maghreb countries (Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco), by addressing the concept of both participatory democracy and participatory budgeting, along with identifying the legal mechanisms adopted by the three countries to apply them across their local regions.