Participatory governance in Peru: exercising citizenship

This paper discusses participatory budgeting as a learning process, with an analysis of two cases of participatory budgeting in Lima, Peru. Peru is the only country in the world where it is legally required that local and provincial authorities should formulate comprehensive development plans and budgets in a participatory manner. The first case discussed is Villa El Salvador, one of the cities that set the example for the framework law on participatory budgeting. The second is the district of San Juan de Miraflores, where municipal officials and inhabitants are currently struggling to implement the new law. This paper suggests that despite obvious shortcomings and a wide variety of implementation problems, the new legal framework offers interesting opportunities for participatory governance.