As Joseph Schumpeter once pointed out, "the budget is the skeleton of the state stripped of all misleading ideologies". Yet, like in most of the countries, budgeting exercise in Bangladesh largely remains an exclusive domain of the bureaucrats and the technocrats. Although in post PRSP era, one can also discern positive trends spearheaded by new generation civil servants, there is still limited room for citizens' participation. Additionally, lack of capacities outside the public sector to independently analyse the budget makes it difficult to utilise whatever room that exists. Nevertheless, applied budget groups are taking root in a broad set of countries. Budget groups are taking root despite extreme paucity of data, repressive regimes, extensive corruption and political turmoil.

Why participation is important?
Participation in budgeting provides an important opportunity for the commoners to translate their aspirations into actions. As it is argued by Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stigliz, citizen participation is a sine qua non for pro-poor policies; it is not an 'either or' choice. Indeed, the formulation, implementation and monitoring of a pro-poor budget should be participatory in a manner that is equal, inclusive and collegial (Department of Economic and Social Affairs, UN, 2005).

Government enjoys perfect monopoly in producing public goods. Thus, market mechanism cannot judge the quality and relevance of public goods, like national defence, primary education, etc. Yet, direct participation of the people can effectively address this issue.

Besides, poor people often have limited access to express their concerns through established channels as, Arundhati Roy once indicated, it "offers us a very reduced political space". A direct link with grassroots and their representatives, hence, provides a useful opportunity to measure, in market jargon, the "client satisfaction".

In this context, direct citizen participation helps build trust and promote transparency in government actions. Significantly, both of these elements are vital for achieving the MDGs, especially poverty reduction.

Dimensions of participation
Participation in budgeting process has different qualifiers. In Bangladesh, where most revenue is generated at the centre, participants in local budgeting focus on expenditure to address local issue. In contrast, participants need to have a holistic picture of national goals and appreciation of the revenue issue for their participation in national budget.

Scope of participation in budget formulation vis-à-vis participation in providing feedbacks on a proposed budget varies significantly too. Additionally, participatory monitoring of budget implementation calls for a higher degree of 'collaboration' than otherwise is required. Last but not the least, degree of ownership of the stakeholders is poles apart when participation is approved by a legal stature than when it is only voluntary participation by the citizen.

Bangladesh situation
Authorities meet and seek opinions of several large national stakeholder groups during budget formulation process. However, absence of established framework for incorporating concerns of these groups undermines the potential of these meetings. Additionally, traditionally marginalised groups like landless, women, youth groups, almost never get to meet with the authority.

After budget proposals are made, grassroots organisations with their limited capacity and access commonly remain silent. A few 'think tanks' and industry associations usually offer formal assessment of the proposal from their own stand point. These bodies mobilise media support to express concerns and changes, often successfully. Yet, in the absence of participatory monitoring, bureaucrats, in the past, exercised administrative instruments (e.g., SROs) freely to undo any changes.

Finally, though a recent trend, sometimes government engage with a small group of representatives from the civil society organizations to gather inputs for budgeting process. Considering that most of the opinions expressed by these groups is actually incorporated in the budgets, these engagements are more productive but not particularly pro-poor.

Challenges of participation
The first challenge is lack of an institutional framework for participation. Line ministries may finalise respective budget strategies in consultation with people's representatives before forming their budget proposals. This can open up scope for more meaningful participation at the formulation stage. In this regard, capacity of each line ministry may be strengthened to link their proposal to larger poverty reduction strategies and MDGs. Once finalised, the proposal should be made available to all to promote policy debate.

Similarly, the newly setup Budget Analysis Unit (BAU) of Bangladesh National Parliament (BJS) can effectively facilitate participation of the grassroots in several ways. The unit can conduct sectoral and thematic analysis of budget and publish their findings in a way that is well understood by the grassroots. They can also coordinate among the Finance Division, National Board of Revenue and the Bangladesh Bank and the grassroots organisations and facilitate exchange of views. Additionally, the unit can also collate the opinion and concerns of these organisations for the Members of Parliament. As the only legally mandated discussant group, strengthening the Members of Parliament with people's perspective would be vital.

Mechanisms may be established to ensure interaction between grassroots representatives and relevant parliamentary standing committees who oversee the monitoring and evaluation of budget implementation. Such interaction would necessarily promote ownership and transparency.

The other daunting challenge in ensuring people's participation is capacity. The Sirajganj model, an internationally acclaimed working model of enhancing capacity to participate in local budget, can be replicated more vigorously in this regard.

Both government and the development partners can undertake specific steps to build capacity of grassroots to participate in the national budget. Lessons learned from a very successful intervention in Ghana to build capacity among various stakeholders can be mentioned in this regard. In that particular case, multi-stakeholder partnership worked together to spur the development of requisite capacity in grassroots organisations.

Finally, steps are required to bridge the capacity gaps of the national planners too. Inadequacy and inaccuracy of data, limitation of national statistical system, lack of tools to monitor impacts from a holistic height, and lack of coordination with the budget implementation agencies are some of the most damaging issues. Often, these limitations discourage the planners to engage into wider debates and discussions. Ongoing initiatives in this regard can be strengthened from 'participatory budgeting' angle too.

Conclusion
Although participatory budgeting is useful as a tool to promote political inclusion and social justice, it is no panacea. Participatory fiscal decision making needs openness and sincerity from the authorities. Governments can use and have used participatory budgeting to advance their own shady agenda by simply 'hiding key information'.

It is also important to carefully examine which organisations are participating. There was near consensus in the development community that it is possible for civil society to move budgets to a pro-poor position [World Development Report 2000]. However, the tone of the World Development Report 2004 was much less optimistic and pointed out how civil society can turn into pressure group of the rich and the famous.

People's participation is not an alternative to good governance and responsive political system. Having a reliable conduit of participation can only strengthen the decision making process in the context of a democratic system that is responsive to its constituents. Otherwise, as experience shows, even the participation is 'hijacked' by 'the rich and the lobbyists' and offer little to the most (Stephen L. Esquith, 1997).

Bangladesh has taken great stride towards enhancing transparency and ensuring accountability of public institutions. Participation is one key element of this initiative to make it sustainable. The move to include people in the budgeting process, although limited, is a good start in the right direction. I hope such inclusion would not remain as an alternative strategy but would gradually evolve as a strategy to include alternatives.

KAM Morshed is the Head of e-Development Cluster of UNDP, Bangladesh.