Strategic Analysis of the Participatory Budgeting Plan “I am the mayor” Using SWOT-QSPM Technique

Introduction :

Participatory governance is an important approach that has attracted the attention of statesmen in the past few years, and it is used to bring people together with policies and use their capacity in implementation and monitoring. Urban management also uses this approach in the field of budgeting, implementing, and monitoring municipal projects. In this regard, one of the important plans that were carried out in Tehran municipality in 1401 is the “I am the mayor” plan, which aims to survey citizens for budgeting and prioritization of new municipal projects. 

This article aims to investigate and evaluate this plan’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats with the SWOT analysis method and then prioritize the extracted strategies using QSPM technique. This research was conducted using a qualitative (descriptive-analytical) method. Information was collected in the form of in-depth and semi-structured interviews. In this regard, 24 experts in the field of urban management and participatory governance were surveyed.

The results of this analysis show that proper accessibility, proper notification, considering the incentive system, and a quick review of proposals are the strengths of the plan; short plan implementation time, the possibility of registering fake comments, aggregating various preferences, and asking unprofessional questions are weak points of the plan; increasing social capital, strengthening social justice, reducing social problems, and greater productivity are plan opportunities; and limitation of resources, imposing opinions on all people, creating expectations in citizens, and lack of sufficient awareness of citizens are the threats of this plan. Based on the analysis, 8 important strategies have been presented in the form of a SWOT matrix. 

The results obtained from the QSPM analysis also show that among the developed strategies, the “Strategy of informing people about the results of plan implementation” and “the strategy of using various tools and methods for participation” are the most important. The selection of “Strategy of informing people about the results of plan implementation” as the most important strategy shows that people like to be aware of the results of their participation and to see the effects of participation in their lives. In the end, practical suggestions are provided for making more use of strengths and opportunities, as well as reducing weaknesses and threats. Finally, solutions for better implementation of participatory budgeting plans are recommended.