Local Government Participatory Budget System in Zimbabwe: The Case of Harare City Council, 1995-2013

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of the prevailing contextual variables on the implementability of participatory budgeting (PB) system in Zimbabwe’s local authorities with special reference to the Harare City Council (HCC). This study was undertaken against the background that the PB system had produced intended results in some local authorities and unintended results in others. This was mainly due to the fact that the PB system was transplanted from elsewhere where it recorded success stories and replicated in other different settings without taking into account different prevailing contextual factors. The main objective of the study is to examine how contextual variables affect the implementability of PB system in HCC. The study revealed that the prevailing contextual variables in Zimbabwe generally and HCC specifically are inhospitable to the successful implementation of the PB system.

Keywords: participatory budgeting, Harare City Council