Alternative Budget Initiative (ABI)

Convened by Social Watch Philippines in 2006, SWP-ABI is consortium of various organizations and individuals building capacities of marginalized sectors to directly engage national budget processes to craft a budget for a people-responsive national development through a rights-based framework of people’s participation. The consortium comes out with an annual Orange Book which contains alternative budget proposals on identified social development areas, as well as alternative analysis of the macroeconomic assumptions of the proposed national government budget. The ABI has been proven to have value added in pushing for financing of important social development objectives, such as the Sustainable Development Goals. The alternative budgets are a product of continuing research on the situation of marginalized sectors, and identification of critical gaps and the programs of the concerned government agencies. The SWP-ABI network is composed of the clusters of Education, Health, Social Protection, Agriculture, Environment, and Persons with Disabilities while tackling cross-cutting issues of children, gender, and climate change.