An Introduction to Participatory Budgeting

[Africa Research Institute]This is the first chapter of our 2014 Paper The Mayors, the booklovers, and the citizens: participatory budgeting in Yaounde, Cameroon. It examines how citizens, local mayors and a society of booklovers collaborated to establish participatory budgeting in Yaoundé, despite the weakness of democracy and absence of traditions of participation or public service in Cameroon.