Bogotá has already built a significant track record in developing participatory practices, in which its citizens have been involved in the design, implementation, and monitoring of public policies for the city and its districts. To a large extent, these experiences have been made possible by the intention, enshrined in Bogotá's Organic Statute, to promote citizen participation in public affairs as a key component of public management, and by the consequent creation of a complex infrastructure of spaces and mechanisms for participation through which this objective can be achieved.

In the last three decades there has also been a history of citizen mobilization outside of existing institutional spheres, around specific problems such as the construction of infrastructure, the provision of housing, the provision of public services, or the care of the poorest sectors of the population, for example, which has allowed, according to the few statistics available, an increase in the number of social organizations.

With this background, and since the late 1980s, Bogotá began to open its planning process to citizen participation. This process has grown from informality to institutionalization and from sectoral to comprehensive planning in the numerous exercises carried out since then at both the district and local levels, governed by various regulations.