Co-deciding on the city budget can be a ‘training ground’ for young citizens

Read this article in Romanian.

Letting young people decide how to spend a part of the city budget can empower the youth, boost participation and be a “lesson of civic education,” according to experts.

European cities are increasingly experimenting with youth participatory budgeting, allowing young citizens to propose ideas to implement in their city, neighbourhood or school.

Last summer, Vienna introduced a €1 million participatory budget for young people between 5 and 20 years old as part of the city’s strategy for children and youth.

The young residents of the Austrian capital were called to submit initiatives that would cost at least €10,000, such as sports facilities and green spaces. The most feasible ones were then selected by the administration for a co-creation stage.

“The co-creation phase was really the heart of the participatory budget because young people and those working for the city worked together in workshops and created projects out of the ideas submitted,” said Isabella Steger, head of the coordination office on the children and youth strategy.

The aim of the programme is to give young people “the chance to actually decide how money from the government is spent, how Vienna is built, how we live together,” she said, adding that it shows young people that their voice matters.

Empowering young citizens

Youth participatory budgeting is also a way to involve young people beyond local elections and boost participation among children, according to Agnieszka Maszkowska, president of SocLab Foundation in Poland and coordinator of a youth participatory budgeting project.

“This is the first time when they feel that they have some power, they are listened to by adults,” she said.

In her view, while political will is a key ingredient to starting participatory budgeting, the amount of funds dedicated to the process is important.

“Through decisions about some small amounts of money, young people can be prepared to decide about something bigger and to think that it’s public money, it’s common good,” she said.

Moreover, participation also increases social competencies, like cooperation, problem-solving and negotiation skills, especially among the participants who are more actively involved in creating the projects.

“This is a great lesson of civic education,” Maszkowska said, adding that “taking part in such a process changes the attitudes of young people.”

According to Steger, the process also helps young people “see what a challenging process it’s sometimes to spend money from the government, but also what a challenging process it can be to plant a tree.”

A ‘training ground’

Ágnes Balázsi-Pál, director of PONT group, which manages the youth participatory budget in the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca, said “it is a training ground” for young people.

“Throughout the process, they learn how to find solutions to different problems, how to work in groups, how to transform an idea into a mini-project that needs to have budget and impact,” she explained.

The Com’ON Cluj-Napoca participatory budgeting has been running since 2015.

“We started from the idea that there is a lot of uncaptured value in the city among young people who are not necessarily involved in any kind of youth organisation,” András Farkas, strategic director of PONT group, told EURACTIV.

In Cluj-Napoca, young people can form informal groups and propose ideas. While only young people can submit ideas, all of the population is called on to vote on the projects.

“This participation creates trust between generations,” Farkas said, adding that in the long term this also strengthens the resilience of the community, as “young people, the next generation, are already involved and they are actually part of the community at an early stage.”

Both Vienna and Cluj-Napoca aim to keep running youth participatory budgeting in the future, with an increased budget.

“We believe that with more resources, there can be more untapped youth potential being tapped in the city life,” Farkas said.

[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]

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