Human Rights Budgeting Resource Page

People’s Budgeting: A Tool for Transforming our Region?
World leaders are paying growing attention to the importance of fundamentally restructuring the economy and public budgets to meet people's basic needs (which are human rights). These calls for a Human Rights Economy can inspire work in Pittsburgh and other cities to explore new tools for shaping how resources are allocated in our communities. Starting with public budgets makes sense as a step towards changing thinking about how we as a city define our priorities and where we want to invest our limited resources. The following resources can guide our work to promote human rights budgeting and more democratic engagement in decisions that affect our lives.

Resources

• Realizing Human Rights through Government Budgets United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2017
• Human Rights Budgeting | Scottish Human Rights Commission-The national government in Scotland supports local governments in implementing human rights budgeting processes.

• What is Human Rights Budgeting?-National Economic and Social Rights Initiative's Tools and resources for human rights budgeting
• People's Budget short animated film
• Real Money, Real Power: Participatory Budgeting (4 min. video)
• Human Rights Budgeting FAQs
• Vermont’s People’s Budget Campaign
• Video: How Participatory Budgeting Works in New York City - (14 min)

• Participedia.net-website featuring democratizing projects from around the world-models and toolkits for local action!

Participatory budgeting (PB) is a democratic process in which community members decide how to spend part of a public budget. It gives people real power over real money. PB started in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1989, as an anti-poverty measure that helped reduce child mortality by nearly 20%. Since then PB has spread to over 3,000 cities around the world, and has been used to decide budgets from states, counties, cities, housing authorities, schools, and other institutions. For more information see: https://www.participatorybudgeting.org/

Pittsburgh City of Pittsburgh Operating Budget 2019

• With New Budget App, City Hopes Public Will Have Greater Say On Spending
• Everything You See Costs Money. Here’s How Pittsburgh Pays For It This story discusses an effort by the city to engage more residents in the budgeting process.
  • Analysis of Pittsburgh deliberative forum on budget
  • Video of 2019 Budget Forum (held in June 2018)
    • The city seems to be working to make the budget process more transparent, but clearly more residents need to be brought into these discussions. How can this be done in a way that doesn't further marginalize working people and low-income residents struggling to just manage their day-to-day lives? Can we find ways to improve democratic engagement and participation in the policies that impact Pittsburghers in such critical ways?

Further Reading
Yes! Magazine

• How to Make City Budgets Racially Just? Let Citizens Do the Numbers
• HUMAN RIGHTS BUDGETING: A Real-time Solution for the City of Jackson
• Meet the Citizens Who Helped Decide Their City’s Budget—and Got Better Buses, Benches, and Crosswalks-Greensboro, NC
• How to Hack City Money: Let 16 Year Olds Vote on Budgets, Get Banks to Invest Locally
• 8 Main Street Job Creators Who Are Rebooting the Economy—Starting with Those Who Need It Most