The development digital platform Participatory Brazil (Brasil Participativo) is the largest instance of digital participation ever conducted by the country’s federal government, with 1.4 million citizens actively participating in state policymaking. It is a rare example of scaling citizens’ democratic participation in government planning at the national level.
At the launch event of Participatory Brazil, President Lula da Silva emphasised that the country had “experienced six years of restricted societal participation in political life.” During Bolsonaro’s mandate, many national councils, particularly in environmental, human rights, and social policy areas, were revoked or altered. Now, drawing on a long-standing hallmark of the Workers Party, Lula aims to rebuild civic engagement. His strategy includes integrating the new digital platform with both existing and newly established spaces for public consultation such as the Pluriannual Plan (PPA), a four-year government planning tool outlining strategic priorities and budget allocations.
Renato Simões, National Secretary of Social Participation of the General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic, emphasises the importance of this approach: “Our job is to expand social participation across all areas of government. Uniting and rebuilding Brazil will not be possible without popular participation. The forces that attacked democracy are still active and conspiring against it; those that impeded social participation continue to operate to this day.”
National scale
Unlike many participatory budgeting platforms that focus solely on city infrastructure, Participatory Brazil addresses critical national challenges. Citizens established key priorities including fighting hunger, reducing inequalities, combating deforestation, addressing the climate emergency, enhancing healthcare, improving education, and promoting neo-industrialization and employment.
While some of these priorities appeared in previous plans, the 2024-2027 PPA notably emphasises combating deforestation and addressing the climate emergency. This focus is so significant that a dedicated participatory plan for the climate crisis has been incorporated within Participatory Brazil.
While successful in expanding digital participation, it still has to be seen if Participatory Brazil has fostered equal representation in policy-making and if the ambitious priorities and proposals will be implemented in the future.
Extending access to policy making
Despite the 1.4 million users of Participatory Brazil only representing a small portion of the total 156 million eligible voters, the participation rate has been the largest so far. In just 66 campaign days, there were more than 1,419,729 unique registered users, who presented 8,254 proposals, and cast 1,529,826 votes. Moreover, of the total of 8,254 proposals received, only 1% of proposals were moderated for terms of use violations.
Brazil’s initial foray into digital social participation occurred in 2013 with the Youth Participatory Program, which engaged 11,000 users in developing youth policies. This was followed by the Civil Rights Framework for the Internet, which saw 331 participants. Subsequently, Dialoga Brasil attracted 23,551 participants, the #3ConfJuv app involved 20,000 participants, and the Participa Brasil platform garnered 175,000 participants. None of these digital initiatives surpassed the 4 million accesses and the 1.4 millions of people actively participating in the Brazil Participativo platform.
Hybrid mobilisation
One reason for this unprecedented success in politically engaging citizens may be the hybrid mobilisation strategy adopted by the government. Instead of merely promoting the digital platform in isolation, teams from the General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic and the Ministry of Planning and Budget travelled across the country, holding plenary sessions to engage directly with the population. These debates included social movements, civil society representatives, local leaders, parliamentarians, mayors, and governors.
In addition to fostering civic participation, the platform aimed to include the voices of civil society groups and minorities in policymaking. Initially, there was a prevalence of male participants. To address this imbalance, efforts were made to mobilise more women, and ultimately, women comprised 61% of the total participants. Additionally, while its use was not limited to young individuals, with 65% of participants aged between 30 and 60, the elderly only accounted for 8% of participants.
The imperfect representativeness of Participatory Brazil indicates a need for greater efforts to engage individuals who face challenges in using technology. Carla Bezerra, Director of Digital Participation and Network Communication at the Social Participation National Secretariat of the Brazilian Government, told Democracy Technologies: “although digital facilitates access to participatory spaces, we know that it does not solve everything. There are important digital literacy, inclusion and internet access barriers. In this sense, we have been working to make the tools more accessible and intuitive”.
Future enhancements to the platform include developing accessibility and support tools, such as interactive manuals and tutorials, online courses, and simplified public policy information to make it more understandable for the general population.
Ambitious priorities and proposals
Overseen by the National Secretariat for Social Participation, the platform was developed by the joint work of Dataprev, the Decidim-Brasil community and the University of Brasilia. The primary purpose of the Participatory Brazil platform was to allow citizens to submit proposals for the Pluriannual Plan. Additionally, citizens could vote on three proposals created by the community and prioritise three programs already prepared by the Federal Government. After the voting ended, the 50 proposals with the most votes overall, as well as the top 20 proposals for each of the 38 ministries—a total of 760 proposals—were selected and sent to the ministries, with the recommendation to consider their incorporation into the Pluriannual Plan.
The National Secretary of Social Participation stated that “most priorities were expected and in line with government policies already being developed. They were important to improve, complement and expand the scope of some incisive measures already underway. There were also many demands coming from unions and labour issues, which were outside the scope of the PPA, but for which we organised an agenda to monitor political demands with the government”.
From the Pluriannual Plan to national conferences
The Participatory Brasil platform was not only limited to the Pluriannual Plan. It was designed as a generalised tool for other national conferences, emergencies and governmental planning. Initially, the platform was integrated in the Food Security and Youth Conference, where citizens did not only make proposals but also elected delegates to deliberate on a national stage (observing the criteria of gender parity, ethnic proportionality and regional diversity).
While more specific, the success of these national conferences is not possible without collective action. As Bezerra has previously emphasised, “we are in this effort of great mobilisation in different segments. We want citizens, in fact, to have the power to influence policies. Just having a platform doesn’t automatically make people come and participate. We need people to act, mobilise, call and activate the issues.”
Responding to climate emergencies
The platform also proved very useful in a case of climate emergencies. After heavy floods left many towns in Rio Grande do Sul under water, a new feature within participatory Brazil was launched under the name Brasil United for Rio Grande do Sul. This facilitated transparency of federal government spending and waivers to help the population of Rio Grande do Sul in addition to identifying the areas where donations were most needed.
In response to climate emergencies and popular demand for environmental policies, the digital participation method of the Pluriannual Plan was adopted for the National Plan on Climate Change (Plano Clima), guiding Brazilian climate policy until 2035. On the Brazil Participativo platform, people can propose, vote on, and comment on suggestions. The 10 proposals with the most votes from each thematic axis will be analysed and potentially incorporated into the Climate Plan. Commitments include targets for net greenhouse gas emissions in 2025 and 2030, and the goal of achieving climate neutrality by 2050.
The Participatory Climate Plan has been live for just over a month and, in this period, has already reached 50.6 thousand hits. Among the 15.3 thousand active users, more than 2.7 thousand interacted with the digital participation process, which had 298 proposals sent, 373 comments and more than 4 thousand votes.
Will the Brazilian government live up to participants’ expectations?
So far, the Brazilian government has made important efforts to boost civic participation. However, it still remains to be seen if the state will have sufficient capacity and resources to meet the expectations set by these established priorities and proposals. What is clear is that new forms of monitoring are being established, such as producing quality indicators of progress and proposing the creation of a Pluriannual Plan Observatory to the National Congress.
