Philippines eyeing $200-M loan for subsidies
By Doris Dumlao
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:28:00 08/24/2008
MANILA, Philippines—The Philippine government plans to tap up to $200 million in fresh funding from the World Bank to strengthen a conditional subsidy program which aims to temper the adverse effects of high food and fuel prices on the poor as efficiently as possible.
National Treasurer Roberto Tan told reporters the new facility, tentatively called a “social protection loan” would support the government’s short-term conditional cash transfer (CCT) scheme, an expanded version of previous social welfare-related loans.
The World Bank-led foreign donor community, during a special Philippine Development Forum held last week, backed the government’s efforts to expand its direct cash subsidies to the poor while phasing out “less efficient programs,” such as rice subsidies.
With the implementation of a modern social protection system, the World Bank said, the need for rice price stabilization and rice distribution would diminish over time.
Tan said the proposed funding program, which could range from $150 million to $200 million, would finance the projects initiated by former Socio-economic Planning Secretary and Monetary Board member Romulo Neri.
“(The loan) is still under discussion. This is one of the loans that we want included for 2008 (as program loans),” Tan said.
The proposed financing is similar to the $100-million community-based program Kalahi (Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan) and CIDSS (Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services) programs, which the World Bank first implemented in 2003.
The multilateral lender has provided support to numerous countries in developing and implementing CCT programs throughout the world, from Latin America to North America, and from Africa to Asia.
CCT programs are “a new type of social assistance program that represents an innovative approach to the delivery of social services,” according to the World Bank. These programs provide money to poor families “conditional upon investments in human capital,” for example, sending their children to school.
“The cash transfer is aimed at providing short-term assistance to families often in extreme poverty (while) the conditionalities aim to promote longer-term human capital investments,” said a World Bank paper assessing the impact of past CCT programs.
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