A new 6-year country partnership strategy (CPS) maps out ADB’s support to the Philippine government in achieving its twin goals of becoming an upper-middle income country and reducing poverty incidence to 14 per cent of the population by 2022.
Aligned with ADB’s Strategy 2030, the CPS and its ensuing programs and projects will focus on investing in infrastructure, local economies, and the Filipino people.
Watch this video to learn more about ADB’s new CPS for the Philippines.
Transcript
The Philippines is enjoying its longest economic expansion in over 5 decades.
It’s on track to become an upper middle-income country by the end of 2022.
But even with its strong growth, one in five people remain poor and income inequality is among the highest in Southeast Asia.
Such conditions persist because of huge infrastructure gaps and poor connectivity among regions, markets and people.
Uneven growth in regional economies, with Visayas and Mindanao growing at a slower pace, lagging investments in education, training, and social services, and the poorest regions are highly vulnerable to natural disasters.
Recognizing this, the Asian Development Bank developed a new country partnership strategy that maps out how we’ll partner with the Philippine government to find solutions to these long-standing problems.
Guided by the government’s vision and strategy, our Philippine operations will prioritize three broad areas of support:
Accelerating Infrastructure Investment.
We’ll fund climate-resilient projects that connect regions, communities, and people better.
We’ll create more long-term infrastructure finance options by supporting capital market reforms and increased private sector participation.
We’ll help strengthen the government’s capacity to meet its infrastructure goals.
Promoting Local Economic Development
We’ll assist in expanding regional economies, especially in Visayas and Mindanao, through local government reform programs, improved municipal finance, and by connecting growth centers with lagging areas.
We’ll help create livable cities that are able to manage risks from natural disasters.
Investing in people
We’ll help the country’s poor, especially those in rural areas, gain decent jobs and participate fully in society by raising access to education, labor market programs, financial products and services and expanding social protection.
We’ll explore innovative ways with our partners to efficiently deliver these social services.
Across these three pillars of support, we will ensure that gender equality, private sector participation, governance, and environmental sustainability are at the core of all projects and programs.
We’ve signed an agreement with the Philippine government for an estimated $7.8 billion lending program from 2018 to 2021.
We’ve rebalanced our financing to provide more support for infrastructure development.
And we’ll work with development partners and the private sector to increase joint funding of projects.
Through this new partnership strategy, ADB will assist the Philippine government in significantly lowering poverty while increasing household incomes so that the Philippines can stay on track to become an upper middle-income economy, where the fruits of high growth are enjoyed by all Filipinos.
