Participatory budgeting is an ongoing experience in the municipality of Parakou in the Republic of Benin. This ongoing process sheds light on the relationship between principals and those mandated in the ongoing local development and decentralization process. This research aims to analyze the fulfilled or disappointed hopes and the uncertainties of the participatory budget of the municipality of Parakou. In a mixed approach, the questionnaire and the interview guide made it possible to collect data from 384 informants identified by reasoned choice and cluster techniques. It appears that the participatory budget mechanism in the municipality of Parakou comes to provide a response to the lack of participation and takes into account some priorities of the Community. But the participatory challenge has not yet been fully met. We have the impression of being in a partial process of participation which mobilizes the representatives instead of taking into account all the actors of the population in a perspective of global financial citizenship. The resources to achieve this are complex, particularly in communities with large populations, but it will be necessary to innovate with a good perspective of overall inclusion and not of selection for the purposes of good governance and budgetary democracy.