Participatory budgeting at the municipal level as a resource for the development of the social capital

Modern realities of socio-economic development often lead to significant delays in the implementation of the newest digital economy tools and technologies at the local level.Such gaps in the informational progress could be caused by uneven development of the communities, lack of competent professionals and human capital, unbalanced budgets, lack of trust between the key local stakeholders. As a result, most of the socio-economic development projects are initiated at the national and regional level, leaving an enormous resource of local communities' involvement untouched. Therefore, in the context of solving complex problems at the local level, the question of public administration, local self-government, population and businesss communities joining effort in search of adequate tools for the development of social capital becomes very important. The authors propose to use support for the local initiatives, presented by community members, as a tool for building up social capital at the local level. They suggest that participatory budgeting will help the socioeconomic actors to develop mutual trust, necessary to face current domestic and international challenges.