Abstract:

There is a general perception that participatory budgeting (PB) in developing countries is an annual ritual exercise to comply with pressure from supranational agencies to adopt New Public Management (NPM) reforms, rather than a practical process that involves key stakeholders in formulating and developing plans and budgets that incorporate their needs and priorities. The paper adopts a qualitative interpretive approach and a case study design, using Uganda and Uganda Management Institute as country and study sites respectively, to explore how PB is implemented in practice and whether the desired outcomes are achieved. It will further explore the underlying factors that restrict or enhance PB in a decentralised higher institution of learning framework. Though there are many studies on participatory budgeting, no rigorous analytical study has been conducted on how the design features and preconditions of participatory budgeting influence its desired outcomes (Goldfrank, 2005). Second, the design and how local context affect outcomes has not been theoretically explained.

The paper will therefore, explore the following question: How does PB work in a higher institution of learning in a developing country?

Keywords:

Participatory budgeting, decentralisation, higher institution of learning, stakeholders, Uganda.