Questão 809010

Read the text below in order to answer questions 16 to 18:

A new budget system

In 1989, the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre came up with a radical solution to its major problems of unaccountability and extreme poverty: a participative budget. For the last decade, the people of the city have been deciding how the budget for public works should be allocated. Neighbourhood groups propose projects, and people from community groups and non-profit organisations who have been elected by their neighbours, decide which projects will go ahead. In some cases, the community delegates also oversee implementation of the final projects. This has had the triple result of avoiding corruption and mishandling funds, improving concrete matters on the ground, and increasing democratic participation in the process by a huge amount.

The participative budget