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Eskisehir: Participatory Budget – Bi'Fikirle Eskisehir

Avatar: Official proposal Official proposal

The Participatory Budget – Bi'Fikirle Eskişehir application, implemented by the Eskişehir Metropolitan Municipality in 2025, encompasses a digital democratic participation model representing an innovative local governance approach in Turkey. The application ensures that citizens are actively involved in municipal budget preparation processes, strengthens transparent governance, enhances accountability, and promotes the participation of city residents in decision-making mechanisms. In this context, budget planning has been transformed into a multi-stage, participatory governance mechanism, through which citizens can directly express their needs and priorities via the bifikirle.eskisehir.bel.tr platform. 

The process, implemented between June and August 2025, consists of five stages: receiving project applications; conducting preliminary and technical evaluations; submitting projects for digital voting; sharing the voting results with the public; and including the selected projects in the 2026 investment program for subsequent monitoring. Throughout the process, 1,768 citizens registered on the system, of whom 1,477 voted, with a total of 9,380 votes cast. A total of 269 project proposals were submitted by citizens; 50 projects that passed the preliminary and technical evaluation were presented for voting, and 26 projects were prioritized for implementation. 

One of the most important elements of the application is that it does not limit participation to the idea submission stage, but also transparently opens both the implementation and monitoring processes to the public. The project enabled needs assessment at the neighborhood level and specifically allowed young people, women, and disadvantaged groups to have a direct voice in city governance. Additionally, it has modernized institutional capacity by fostering a data-driven decision-making culture and promoting interdisciplinary collaboration among municipal units. 

Eskişehir's participatory budget model aligns with international best practice standards in terms of the effective use of digital tools and the direct integration of projects into the official investment program. This initiative has not only served as a budgeting technique in Eskişehir but has also fostered the establishment of a permanent, trust-based communication platform between citizens and the municipality, promoting a sustainable local democratic culture.

Learn more about it: https://bifikirle.eskisehir.bel.tr/ 

https://www.oidp.net/docs/repo/doc1919.pdf 


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Eskisehir: Participatory Budget – Bi'Fikirle Eskisehir

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