The largest city in Latin America, São Paulo, receives approximately R$100 billion in annual revenue. But in practice, many people in the outskirts of the city still lack day care services and properly functioning health centers, and face potholed streets and abandoned squares. Where does all this money go?
While some regions get visible improvements, others continue to wait for projects that never arrive.
With this in mind, we're launching the Orçamentômetro tool: an easy, interactive way to show how much of the city's budget actually reaches each region.
With maps, graphs, and simple language, the Orçamentômetro allows any resident to see what was promised and what was actually delivered in their area.
The tool will also be useful for other newsrooms and initiatives that want to investigate how public funds are being used in the city of São Paulo and demand accountability. Our hope is that other newsrooms replicate the project in other cities to increase public transparency.
With this editorial project, we want to transform technical public data into power for those who need it most: the residents of the regions that are always left last in decisions about the city's future.
