Drawing on the Philippines as a case study, this brief explores how effective the graduation approach is in reducing poverty and assesses opportunities to apply it in other developing member countries.
 
The graduation approach builds on a foundation of social assistance with a holistic set of poverty reduction interventions aimed at tackling the multiple facets of poverty. It combines cash transfers with asset transfers, financial inclusion, tailored skills training, livelihood development, social inclusion, and life-skills coaching and psychosocial support. Although the impacts are positive, they can be expensive and ADB is exploring variations of the approach to see if the costs can be brought down.