Good for cities and people. How civil budgeting can change the way we approach local issues

In Belarus, in recent years, there has been a tendency to decrease the total number of applications from citizens and legal entities. At the same time, the number of repeated and collective appeals is significantly reduced, which indicates an improved response. Irina Rusak, an analyst at the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies, notes that further improvement of this work is possible in the development of a civil budgeting mechanism that allows residents to choose and finance socially significant projects at the planning stage. About the prospects of this direction talked with an expert.

Irina Rusak. Civil budgeting can become a practical way to more accurately direct part of the budget to specific requests of people: for example, for the improvement of yards, the installation of street lighting in the city, and in the agro-town, village. Its value is not in the voting itself, but in clear rules, real funding and a mandatory report on the result, said Irina Rusak. Today, Belarusians have many opportunities to inform the state about issues of concern: personal reception, direct telephone lines, 115 service, electronic appeals. However, most often a person applies when the problem has already arisen: the road surface has collapsed, the entrance is required to be repaired or transport communication is necessary.

The next logical step is to give residents the opportunity not only to ask to fix the problem, but also to participate in the selection of some socially significant projects before the funding is distributed. This approach is called civil, initiative budgeting.

- In simple words, residents offer useful ideas for the territory, experts check their feasibility and calculate the cost. Local authorities summarize the most acceptable projects, and citizens themselves choose which of them will be allocated money. I would like to note that for Belarus this is not a matter of handing over to citizens the authority to form the entire budget. We can talk about a strictly defined part of local funds directed to small, understandable and popular public facilities. For example, residents can offer to build a sports field, green or landscape the area, provide an accessible environment for the elderly and people with disabilities. The decision should be made not on emotions, but after a competent miscalculation of all costs and compliance with all standards. Irina Rusak focuses on the development of territories: the country’s residents are not indifferent to what is happening next to them. This is confirmed by the number of appeals. Among the most pressing are the issues of housing and communal services: repair of housing stock, heating, water supply, maintenance of streets and roads. In other words, people are already setting their priorities. This is especially important after the past year of improvement and in the current five-year quality plan.

Residents do not talk abstractly about the development of the territory, but about what directly affects their quality of life. This information is very important for local authorities. It should not only be considered in each individual appeal, but also systematically used in planning the development of districts, cities, settlements, rural settlements. It is worth noting that in recent years, the role of digital tools of “communication” with state bodies has significantly increased. In 2025, the number of electronic applications in Belarus exceeded the number of written applications for the first time. This is due to the development of a unified system of accounting and processing applications of citizens and legal entities, the growth of digital literacy of the population.

- It is important that complaints are not just complaints. Through the system, you can send a proposal, receive information, express gratitude, report a deficiency or suggest an improvement. The platform for collecting initiative proposals of citizens of Merkavanna is actively in demand. Since April 2025, a separate Center for the Analysis of Civil Initiatives “People’s Five-Year Plan” has been created in BISI, which accumulates proposals at the request of citizens and sends them to interested government bodies, the analyst says.

All this shows that citizens are ready to interact with the state in digital format not only as applicants, but also as participants in improving their living environment.

Civic budgeting could complement this work. If appeals show that people most often talk about road surface problems, unequipped stops or the state of public spaces, then some local projects could be formed taking into account such a request and the direct choice of residents. Not any project, but useful to everyone. Initiative budgeting has a fundamental difference from individual appeal: it should work not for private interest, but for public benefit.

That is why the mechanism requires strict conditions. First of all, local authorities need to establish a list of permissible types of projects. This is necessary in order to clearly define the target task - the allocation of funds for the development of public infrastructure, the improvement of the territory and the creation of a safe and affordable living environment.

It is extremely important to determine the amount for initiative projects in advance in order to understand the real financial costs, and not just vote on an impossible promise. To do this, it is necessary to carry out a qualitative analysis of the project by qualified specialists, since it is important that the idea meets the standards, has a calculation and technical possibility for implementation.

All conditions should be published in the media or on specialized stands, in other available sources, so that every citizen sees the cost, timing, address and expected result. At the same time, it is necessary to combine online and offline participation so that not only active Internet users, but also elderly people, have the right to vote.

The final stage should be official reporting on the implementation of initiatives, so that residents can see that the winning project is actually completed, and budget funds are used for their intended purpose.

- This approach can make working with local initiatives more transparent. But it should not become a competition of the loudest or most emotional ideas. The condition of participation should be a real benefit to the territory. Therefore, it is important to calculate economic and social efficiency with the participation of government bodies, says Irina Rusak.

At the same time, civil budgeting does not replace the professional work of economists, designers, utilities, deputies and other interested persons. It can make this work more targeted. Of course, we need regulatory elaboration of the issue, coordination primarily with the ongoing fiscal policy of the state.

- I note that when a person does not just report a problem, but sees how his proposal is discussed, receives support and becomes a real object, the very logic of interaction changes. Citizens become participants in the project management of the territory and are responsible for the operation of agreed and initiated decisions, which forms a more careful attitude to the environment in which we live, sums up Irina Rusak.

kurdo@sb.by