Social Watch E-Newsletter - Issue 256 - May 6, 2016

Issue 256 - May 6, 2016
 
 
   
 
 

Alternative Budget Initiative in the Philippines

   
 
It has been a decade since Social Watch Philippines (SWP) convened the Alternative Budget Initiative (ABI). The consortium has now blossomed to around one hundred and sixty strong civil society organizations and individuals conducting research and lobby efforts in coming out with annual budget analysis, campaigning against lump sum funds, and engaging the national government and the legislature in the budget process by coming out with a civil society-crafted alternative budget, otherwise called as the Orange Book.
Throughout the years, the effort of the consortium to directly engage through the budget process has led to the forging of partnerships with concerned agencies and champion legislators, expansion of the ABI network to more organizations and individuals who share SWP and ABI's development vision through budget advocacy, and the continuing presence of the ABI in House and Senate to present alternative budget proposals. Read more
   
   
 
 

Guiding principles on extreme poverty and human rights

   
 
The adoption of the Guiding Principles on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2012 was a significant victory in the effort to end extreme poverty. It acknowledged that poverty is not simply a matter of lack of income. These Guiding Principles clearly identify actions that governments and other relevant actors should take to ensure that all people are able to enjoy their human rights.
ATD Fourth World worked alongside our partners to complete this important document. The next step in their work was to translate these principles into language that everyone can understand and to suggest actions at the local level that groups working alongside people in poverty can put into place. In collaboration with a group of ten international non-governmental organizations active at the field level, they developed an implementation handbook on these Guiding Principles. Read more
   
   
 

The Panama Papers have helped expose how politicians, criminals and corporations around the world hide their cash and avoid taxes. In Papua New Guinea (PNG), foreign owned logging companies are profiteering, using some of the same tricks.
Recent research by the Oakland Institute revealed that most logging companies operating in the country are not paying corporate tax. Despite decades of operations and the country being today the largest exporter of tropical timber in the world, logging companies barely declare any profit. This deprives PNG of hundreds of millions of dollars in much needed revenue. Read more

 
   
 

 

 
SOCIAL WATCH IS AN INTERNATIONAL NGO WATCHDOG NETWORK MONITORING POVERTY ERADICATION AND GENDER EQUALITY
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