Neighborhood budget committees, for example, have authority to determine the citywide budget, not just the allocation of resources for their particular neighborhood. Therefore, mediating institutions are also needed to combine budget preferences expressed by sub-jurisdictions. According to the World Bank Group, certain factors are needed for participatory budgeting to be adopted: "[…] strong mayoral support, a civil society willing and able to contribute to ongoing policy debates, a generally supportive political environment that insulates participatory budgeting from legislators' attacks, and financial resources to fund the projects selected by citizens." In addition, there are generally two approaches through which participatory budgeting formulates: top-down and bottom-up. In the top-down approach, the adoption of participatory budgeting is required by the federal government (for example, as in Peru). In the bottom-up approach, local governments initiate participatory budgeting independent from the national agenda (such as in Porto Alegre); with this approach, NGO's and local organizations play crucial roles in mobilizing and informing the community members. Participatory budgeting processes do not adhere to strict rules, but they generally share several basic steps: The municipality is divided geographically into multiple districts. Representatives of the divided districts are either elected or volunteered to work with government officials in a participatory budgeting committee. The committees are established with regularly scheduled meetings under a specific timeline to deliberate. Proposals, initiated by the citizens, are dealt under different branches of public budget such as recreation, infrastructure, transportation, etc. Participants publicly deliberate with the committee to finalize the projects to be voted on. The drafted budget is shared to the public and put for a vote. The municipal government implements the top proposals. The cycle is repeated on an annual basis. Digital participatory budgeting (e-participatory budgeting) Technology has often used been to support participatory budgeting, which is commonly referred to as e-participatory budgeting. The use of digital technologies in the process was pioneered by the municipality of Ipatinga in Brazil, which offered the citizens the possibility to vote for projects via the Internet in 2001. The online voting option was later integrated to the participatory budgeting of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul in 2003, and in the municipality of Belo Horizonte in 2006. Since then, the number of participatory budgeting initiatives that included online voting has multiplied around the world, and includes cities like Paris, New York City, Lisbon, Madrid, and Mexico City. Although the effects of online voting