Portugal is one of the first European countries to introduce Participatory Budgeting (PB). The Lisboa City Council (here in after, CML) – adopted the “Charter of Principles” on July 9th, 2008. From 2008 to 2016 – 5,570 proposals were submitted, 1829 of them were selected and finally 31, 205,688.00 Euro...

Portugal is one of the first European countries to introduce Participatory Budgeting (PB). The Lisboa City Council (here in after, CML) – adopted the “Charter of Principles” on July 9th, 2008. From 2008 to 2016 – 5,570 proposals were submitted, 1829 of them were selected and finally 31, 205,688.00 Euro...

The Fórum dos Cidadãos, here in after the Fórum, is a non-profit organization based in Lisbon. It is a civil society project, non-partisan and without political or ideological orientation that aims to establish itself as a new institution in Portuguese civil society. Fórum dos Cidadãos held its first forum called...

The Gadaa system is an indigenous egalitarian democratic system being practiced among the Oromo nation of East Africa for the last six hundred years. Among other structural elements of Gadaa system is its legislative body commonly known as Gadaa General Assembly. The assembly takes place under a sycamore tree -...

Participatory democracy among the Oromo is an endogenous custom. Gathering under a sycamore - a symbolic representation of dialogue and consensus - is the local community to comes together every eight years to make new laws and adjudicate cases.