Alberto Diaz-Cayeros Quoted on Participatory Budgeting in Mexico
Participatory Budgeting Is Music To Medellin's Poor
04/20/2011
Alex Schmidt,
NPR
Colombia's image is still tainted by its long and violent drug war, but its second largest city is practicing one of the most innovative forms of city democracy anywhere.
Medellin is one of few big cities in the world to have successfully implemented a participatory budgeting system: Citizens define priorities, and public money is allocated accordingly.
Jhon Jaime Sanches, 26, grew up in the hills of Medellin, under the legacy of Pablo Escobar's violent drug cartel.
"Militias would come to our school and tell us we had to take up arms to make revolution," Sanches says. "I liked the idea that we needed to find a solution to change things — but what I didn't believe is that we needed to do it with violence."
Click here to read the full article.
Related Links
Alberto Díaz-Cayeros is an Associate Professor of International Relations and Pacific Studies and Director of the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies (USMEX). He is affiliated with the Center for Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law (CDDRL), the Stanford Center for International Development (SCID), and is a member of the board of the Center for Latin American Studies.
