Dobong-gu Establishes 'Participatory Budget Team' to Promote Fiscal Democracy Expansion

Establishment of 'Participatory Budget Team' under Sustainable Policy Officer as of January 1... Responsible for integrating and managing one-time resident participatory budget projects... Supporting expanded resident participation from simple proposals to execution and evaluation

[Asia Economy Reporter Jong-il Park] Dobong-gu (Mayor Dong-jin Lee) will establish and operate a "Participatory Budget Team" under the Sustainable Policy Office as of January 1, 2020, to provide a foundation for more residents to participate in the district's budget formulation and consultation process, thereby contributing to the spread of fiscal democracy.

According to this organizational restructuring, the Sustainable Policy Office will be composed of four teams: the Sustainable Governance Team, Sustainable Planning Team, Sustainable Projects Team, and the newly established Participatory Budget Team, which will integrate and operate participatory budget projects that have been pursued on a one-off basis.

Currently, the resident participatory budgeting system is being implemented in a complex manner through district participatory budgeting and city participatory budgeting (city participation type, city governance type, and neighborhood-level planning type). There has been an opinion that it is necessary to systematize resident participatory budgeting and overcome its limitations by expanding residents' participation beyond simple proposal methods to include stages from execution to evaluation.

The Participatory Budget Team will integrate the district resident participatory budgeting and city resident participatory budgeting (neighborhood-level planning type) through governance and expand it into a deliberative budgeting system.

To this end, the team will take over the city and district resident participatory budgeting-related tasks previously handled by the Planning and Budget Department's Budget Team and the neighborhood-level planning participatory budgeting tasks of the Autonomous Village Department and Autonomous Village Team, enabling residents to more actively formulate and consult on their village budgets.

Specifically, the team will carry out tasks such as the permanent operation of the neighborhood-level Resident Participatory Budget Committee (Deliberation Promotion Group), strengthening autonomy capabilities through the integration of Resident Autonomy Councils and neighborhood Resident Participatory Budget Committees, joint response and activities with the Resident Autonomy Support Group for governance, discovering proposal projects closely related to residents through neighborhood-level public forums, and supporting the operation of Dobong-gu's deliberative budgeting system.

Mayor Dong-jin Lee of Dobong-gu said, "Through this organizational restructuring, I hope it will be an opportunity to spread grassroots democracy and fiscal democracy by enabling residents to have real authority and responsibility in participatory budgeting and solve local problems."

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