France
Départament de l'Ardèche
June - December 2020
The participatory budget allows young people to get involved in their territory by imagining project ideas, submitting projects, voting on projects online or in a jury.
With the participatory youth budget, the AJIR partners and the Department of Ardèche offer the possibility to its inhabitants (especially those aged 11-30), to propose and choose projects to be implemented in the territory. This initiative, which has been at the heart of the AJIR project since 2016, aims to support a transformation of public policies so that the young inhabitants of the territory can find a prominent place in them.
This first experience gives the Department the opportunity to experiment with a participatory budget in which youth plays a leading and committed role. The support is in charge of AJIR (Ardèche, Youth, Innovation, Rurality), a winning project of a Future Investment Programme for Youth, of nearly twelve million euros, financed 50% by the State and 50% by local actors (mainly from Ardèche) and composed of nearly 50 partners who share a common ambition: to make the Ardèche, through its policy in favour of Youth, a territory with a positive rurality. More information on the AJIR programme here.
Young people from Ardèche aged between 11 and 30, either on their own behalf or on behalf of a formal or informal youth group, can submit an idea on the participatory budget website. On the other hand, as per the rules written by young people between 11 and 30 years old, all citizens, businesses, associations and local authorities in Ardèche can submit projects (a step after the submission of ideas) and vote for their favourite projects and thus to participate actively in life in the area at any age.
Prior to the implementation of the participatory budget programme, several AJIRAs were organised. The AJIRA are ephemeral, recurrent and proximity meetings organised within the framework of the AJIR project, that aim to involve young people from the department in the construction of public policies. From 2019, in twelve territories, facilitators went to meet more than 200 young people aged between 11 and 30 years old to help them come up with concrete proposals around three questions: what is going well in your territory; what is the problem in your territory; what proposals would you have to improve things?
Numerous proposals emerged: involving young people in waste collection, developing cycle paths, improving facilities for young people, etc. The next step was the creation of the participatory budget. Thus, the participatory budget for the youth in Ardèche is a device that allows young people to express their ideas in different fields (ecological transition, solidarity and social links, local economy, leisure, sports, etc.) for the Ardèche of tomorrow, which will then inspire projects submitted to the vote of the whole population. At the end of this process, the most relevant ones will take shape thanks to the envelope allocated to project leaders (€30,000 maximum each).
Initially, more than 200 young people aged between 11 and 30 years old participated in drawing up the regulations for this budget. In mid-May the ideas box was launched. Young people between 11-30 years old could participate by submitting their ideas on the participatory budget website, which serve as inspiration for the projects submitted. Find out more about the ideas box. For the project submission phase (23 June - 6 September), the entire population could participate (citizens, associations, local authorities or companies in the Ardèche), with no age limit, as stated in the regulations drawn up by the young people. The department also provided project leaders with a kit for communicating their project.
These projects had to be carried out in the territory of the Ardèche and meet the criteria of the regulations. Some of the criteria listed below:
The young people who constructed the participatory budget regulation decided that projects do not necessarily have to have a link with young people; nor do they need to have young people as a target audience, nor to have been co-constructed with young people, nor even to be led by young people. More information on the criteria can be found by downloading the regulation.
Then, the whole population defined through a vote at the departmental level (from 7 to 23 September 2020) which are the most relevant projects. Each person had an envelope of points to be distributed. For the 11-30 year olds, the points distributed were increased by 10%.
From 23 September to 3 October 2020, the projects were examined: the Department's departments and the AJIR partners checked the feasibility and legality of the projects, in the order of the points obtained during the pre-selection process. At the end of this stage, the selected projects represented 200% of the total budget for youth participation in the Ardèche.
On 3 October, the young people from Ardèche aged 11 to 30 who were part of the jury selected projects representing 150% of the total participatory budget, among the projects that had passed the pre-selection and the "technical control", defended by their promoters and accompanied by resource personnel (elected representatives and professionals). You can consult the projects selected by the jury here.
The final online vote took place from 5 October to 5 November 2020, to decide on the winners of this first edition of the participatory youth budget in Ardèche, thanks to a ten-point envelope to be distributed. Discover the 14 winners here. On 14 December 2020, the winning projects from the last voting phase were presented to the elected representatives of the Département de l'Ardèche, which will allocate the funding after deliberation.
Sources and more information (in French):
Actualités - Budget participatif de la jeunesse en Ardèche
La Boîte à idées des jeunes Ardéchois.es - Budget participatif de la jeunesse en Ardèche
Foire aux questions - FAQ - Budget participatif de la jeunesse en Ardèche
Les AJIRA territoires - Budget participatif de la jeunesse en Ardèche
Join the OIDP
