total of pb processes
​

63

local government
​

56

regional, state
​and national governments

0

other type of institution

7

large cities

2

capital cities

5

Legislation regarding the regulation of Participatory Budgeting experiences
_

We have several Regional Laws focused on promoting participatory processes at a local scale. We only have a Regional law in Sicily focused on participation on a budget: it just subordinates (a small amount of) the money transfer from the Region to the Municipality to the implementation of a participatory process. It does not specify the methodology which can therefore be (and it is) extremely vague.

Outstanding innovation
​_

There is a quite important innovation which is about the introduction of the crowdfunding in the narrative of PB: a small city (Vigolzone) asked the citizens for a small percentage of co-founding to award a project; then, there is an ongoing PB developed in a prison which is aiming to get the total amount of budget from the bottom-up through a crowdfunding process and the search for sponsorship. This was quite obvious since the same PB process is organized free of charge by an NGO in order to build a civic-based participatory process.
The second innovation is about the introduction of the PB in the high schools: the students are entitled to decide over a small budget provided by the school administration.

Principal tendencies detected
​​_

​There are not real tendencies detected: few municipalities are moving towards youth PBs, some municipalities are now approaching online voting tools by using internal or external platforms. There is a general collapse of PB process (and interest in participation), due also to the so called “populist” wave occurring at the national level which is bringing many right-wing parties to the city government. The fact that PB has never become an initiative to promote social justice, remaining a tool in the hands of well-off people, made it less and less
attractive to the rising political forces.

PARTICIPATORY BUDGETING PROCESSES PROMOTED BY OTHER TYPE OF INSTITUTION
​​_

1 PB was promoted by Airbnb in conjunction with (and for the
citizens of) the Municipality of Palermo;5 PB were promoted by
and performed in high schools; 1 PB was promoted by an NGO
within a prison (in crowdfunding); Total 7.
​
​

C O M M U N I T Y

capital

Rome

population

60 431 280

language

Italian

currency

Euro

P O S I T I O N   O N   I N D E X E S

DEMOCRACY

33
FLAWED DEMOCRACY

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

28
VERY HIGH

CORRUPTION PERCEPTION

53/180

WORLD HAPPINESS

36/156