Philippines

Strengthening Development Partnerships

ADB recognizes the importance of working with both Government and other development partners to optimize use of our resources towards priority programs for the Philippines. We

• discuss with Government and development partners our strategies and programs to ensure that our combined efforts will generate greater development results
• look for solutions to cross-cutting portfolio performance and management problems
• pool resources to strengthen our development programs.

ADB coordinates with the World Bank and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) during country portfolio reviews to improve the performance of our ongoing projects. We promote cofinancing for projects to reduce the Government's financing cost. We also cooperate with development partners in pursuing policy reforms in the areas of governance, SME development, anticorruption, decentralization, and microfinance, among others. And recently, ADB joined hands with major partners and consulted Government in harmonizing work and aligning institutional processes to achieve development effectiveness.

In a parallel effort, the Government conducts regular dialogues with development partners to discuss various issues regarding its policies, and the directions and progress of development assistance to the Philippines.

Read ADB's statement during the 2005 Philippines Development Forum held in Davao City, Philippines on 7-8 March 2005, and the participants' agreements on major issues -

• Economic and fiscal reforms
• Growth and investment climate
• Social progress
• Governance and anti-corruption
• Decentralization and local government