Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul´s capital city in southern Brazil, has a consolidated culture of popular participation in its administration. Founded in 1772, this city of more than 1 million people is a cosmopolitan and multicultural region recognized as one of participatory democracy, which means that information and decisions need to be available to everyone.

The ideas of participation and social control are closely related. Residents must participate and contribute to decision making, directing the government to adopt measures that truly meet collective interest.

The need for efficient public service is another determining factor to measure and to report results and expenses. Thus, the population has the right not only to choose their representatives, but also to monitor meticulously, throughout the term, how this delegated power is exercised.

Participatory Budget

Participation, in a more structured manner, occurred in Porto Alegre with the implementation of the participatory budget (PB) in 1989. Since that time, the population decided the application of resources will be run by the municipal administration.

Every year, this process begins with preparatory meetings, when the previous year’s accounts and the investment plan for the coming year are presented. During 17 regional assemblies and 6 thematic1 meetings, the population elects priorities, chooses its directors, and determines the number of representatives for regional forums and thematic discussion groups.

In 2015, these 23 meetings had more than 20,000 attendees, the most impressive number of people in the past 26 years since PB’s implementation. In 2015, the conferences could also be watched live through the Internet, which has become an important tool to connect government and communities.

A Spirit of Cooperation

This society involvement was boosted even more when the concept of strong local governance was added to the consolidated PB as a way to establish social responsibility, participation, and co-management for sustainable development. It represents the appreciation of the local power and the social and human capital, strengthening the spirit of cooperation and association around a common project.

Governance, therefore, is one of the premises that integrate Porto Alegre´s management model adopted in 2005. An agreement was signed with the State Quality and Productivity Program and the Movement for a Competitive Brazil, in order to apply quality principles and to use such methods and modern tools as balanced scorecard, identifying objectives, indicators, and goals.

Other elements of this management model include transparency, which allows citizens to access information on key projects and initiatives as well as execution of public policies in an integrative and cross-functional manner, considering local differences between city zones, and ensuring the leadership´s empowerment of public servants in their respective fields of expertise.

To operationalize policy integration and qualify decision making, internal governance in the form of collective management structures was adopted, including cross-functional meetings involving leaders to discuss various issues and to promote strategic alignment.

Depending on format and needs, this process can include all levels of the administration, involving operational, tactical, or strategic representatives, with their decisions being taken to the highest level of representativeness, the mayor.

As this model evolved, management contracts aimed at expanding transparency were adopted in 2013. These contracts established goals and evaluation criteria for all municipal departments, a commitment to the whole Porto Alegre society.

Each year, the mayor, deputy mayor, heads of departments, and technical managers attend an event at which the previous year’s results and the coming year´s targets are publicly announced. Awards also are given to the teams with best performance as a way to recognize and value civil servants´ performance.

Transparent Processes

In recent years, there has been an effort to promote transparency of government and management processes, both for internal stakeholders and for society. This has led to the development of accountability, strategic planning support, and participatory democracy tools.

The transparency portal,2 for example, offers online information to citizens in a clear and objective language about the origins and applications of municipal resources. Since implementation of the 2011 Access to Public Information Law, new actions and social control instruments are available to the population in a constant improvement process.

The management portal3 is a Web tool that assists in managing the 12 strategic programs of the municipal government. This is another instrument that ensures transparency of public policies and their results.

This portal was created to maintain continuous internal communication and to provide appropriate information through the media to citizens. Its integration into the budgeting system and schedules increases physical and financial monitoring of programs and several projects simultaneously by city hall and by society.

Integrated into the management portal, the website related to the strategic programs' performance evolution analyzes and disseminates how programs and projects have performed regarding leadership questions, indicators, budget execution, complexity, and detailed schedules in the project and portfolio management system called the enterprise project management (EPM). The evaluation criteria and the results can be accessed internally 24/7.

EPM works as a complementary tool to the management portal, which purposes to qualify planning process, activity programming, and graphic representation of prioritized projects, contributing to decision making through monitoring reports and indicators in a centralized and collaborative environment available on the Internet for civil servants.

Currently, Porto Alegre’s city hall has some 1,200 registered and active projects on EPM, shared by a network of more than 800 people. By using this system, it is possible to control planning and execution of all tasks of provided works and services.

Another instrument is #DataPoa,4 Porto Alegre´s open data portal, which aims to invite the community to participate in the development of intelligent solutions for the city. Data can be raw material for students, professionals, journalists, researchers, and entrepreneurs who are interested in creating community services collaboratively.

With specific data and a high level of detail on such areas as mobility, health, education, tourism, and urban cleaning, #DataPoa allows developers to create and build Web platforms, applications, and software that can help the city and its residents as a whole, making collaborative ties between local government, businesses, and residents.

An Involved Citizenry

From this context, Porto Alegre has established public management that prioritizes citizenship and consolidates information for future governments in order to encourage continuity. We envision a city for the next generation, in which city dwellers will be protagonists of change, committed and informed about their responsibilities.

Porto Alegre of the future must provide sustainable development and citizens’ emancipation with coordination between government, private initiative, and civil society. It is necessary, therefore, to increase everyone´s participation systematically.

Knowledge and information are fundamental to continuous improvement, and now quality concepts are prevalent to build a new culture of public administration.

For more information on transparency and strategy planning in Porto Alegre, download the free ASQ Report: The Future of Quality: Quality Throughput at http://asq.org/future-of-quality.