Domestic growth is strong in the Philippines, while global challenges are affecting prospects. The Philippine government is implementing its 8-point socioeconomic agenda and the Philippine Development Plan 2023-2028 to ensure inclusive, resilient, and sustainable growth for a prosperous society.
The Philippines has been one of the most dynamic economies in the East Asia and Pacific region. With increasing urbanization, a growing middle class, and a large and young population, the Philippines’ economic dynamism is rooted in strong consumer demand supported by a vibrant labor market and robust remittances. The private sector remains buoyant, with positive performance from the services sector including business process outsourcing, wholesale and retail trade, real estate, and tourism. Poverty rate declined from 23.3 percent in 2015 to 18.1 percent in 2021 despite the shocks endured through the COVID-19 pandemic and other global headwinds such as high global commodity prices and tight global financial conditions. The Philippine government pursues larger investments in both human and physical capital to boost inclusive growth over the medium and long term.
The Philippines’ economic recovery is well underway, as remained robust at 5.6 percent in 2023, which is among the top growth performers in the region. Over the medium-term, the growth outlook will continue to be supported by strong domestic demand, driven by a robust labor market, continued public investments, and the positive effects of recent investment policy reforms which could boost private investment. With continued recovery and reform efforts, the country is getting back on track on its way from a lower middle-income country with a gross national income per capita of US$3,950 in 2023 to an upper middle-income country (per capita income range of US$4,466 -US$13,845).
Last Updated: Mar 19, 2024
The World Bank’s partnership with the Philippines spans 78 years, providing support to the country’s development programs and projects. Since 1945, it has mobilized funding, global knowledge, and partnerships to support the Philippines’ efforts to alleviate poverty, promote agricultural development, upgrade infrastructure, improve health, nutrition, and education, strengthen resilience against climate change and natural disasters, promote peace, and enhance global competitiveness. The Bank is an active partner in helping spur private sector growth including in agriculture, expanding engagement with civil society, and promoting peace and development in Mindanao.
The Country Partnership Framework (CPF) for the Philippines for 2019-2023, extended by the Performance and Learning Review to 2024, prioritizes investing in Filipinos (health and nutrition, education, and social protection), competitiveness and job creation, and addressing core vulnerabilities by building peace and resilience, with governance and digital transformation as cross-cutting themes. The Bank provides technical assistance and support to projects that strengthen community-driven development including service delivery and linking remote communities to markets; promote human development; and address drivers of conflict. The CPF also supports a cohesive approach to Mindanao’s development and intensify efforts to engage the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
As of end-March 2024, the active portfolio of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD or World Bank) in the Philippines consists of 18 operations with net commitments of US$ 7.46 billion. The financing portfolio spans various sectors: Agriculture and Food (21%); Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation (17%); Urban, Resilience and Land (16%); Health, Nutrition and Population (10%); Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment (10%); Social Sustainability and Inclusion (10%); Social Protection and Jobs (8%); Water (3%); Environment, Natural Resources & the Blue Economy (2%); Transport (2%); and Education (1%).
The Philippines’ Trust Fund (TF) portfolio consists of 81 active grants with a total commitment of US$ 82.23 million. These TFs provide technical assistance and advise in project implementation as well as create or share knowledge to support the Government of the Philippines with the planning and execution of projects and policy changes and initiatives.
Since 1962, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank Group has invested up to US$6 billion in over 170 projects in the Philippines. IFC has provided investment and advisory services focused on climate finance, digitalization, financial inclusion, disaster insurance, enhancing the investment climate, and enabling private sector investments in the country. IFC’s strategic priorities in the Philippines include reducing the impacts of climate change, deepening financial inclusion, promoting sustainable infrastructure, and strengthening the capacity of the private sector.
Last Updated: Apr 11, 2024
Since the Philippines government received its first World Bank loan in 1957, the Bank’s development projects in the country have produced significant results for its people. In the past decades, the Bank’s assistance has expanded to a wide range of projects and analytical work, policy advice, and capacity development in support of the country’s development agenda.
The Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) has been helping raise rural incomes, enhance farm and fishery productivity, and improve market access throughout the country since it started in 2015. It has been supporting provincial planning, rural infrastructure, and agriculture enterprise development. It has been using tools such as geotagging, value chain analysis, expanded vulnerability and suitability assessments, and climate risk vulnerability assessments to strategically guide public investments toward a modern, value-chain oriented, and climate-resilient agriculture and fisheries sector.
The project has supported provincial investment planning for priority agricultural commodities in all 81 provinces of the country. Since 2015, the project has benefitted over 739,000 farmer and fisherfolk beneficiaries (97% of project’s end-target), 49% of them are female beneficiaries. The project has also constructed and rehabilitated over 1,950 kilometers of farm-to-market roads (about 600 kilometers more are underway). These resulted in reduction of travel time by 61% and reduction in transport costs by 23%. Results of a household survey indicate that farmers and fisher households benefitting from completed infrastructure and agricultural enterprise subprojects gained 36% increase in annual household real income.
In June 2021, the PRDP received US$280 million additional investment and €18.3 million grant to build on the gains achieved by PRDP. A new PRDP Scale up project with $600m IBRD was approved in June 2023.
The Philippines COVID-19 Emergency Response Project supported the country’s efforts to scale up national vaccination, strengthen the country’s health systems, and overcome the impact of the pandemic especially on the poor and the most vulnerable. It has helped the Philippines ramp up vaccination by supporting procurement of at least 33 million doses of vaccines. The World Bank-financed vaccines are among the first vaccines used for pediatric vaccination, benefitting 7.5 million children all over the Philippines. The ramp up of vaccination has enabled the authorities to open more economic activities, allowing the country to grow 5.6 percent in 2021. It has facilitated purchase of 500 mechanical ventilators, 119 portable x-ray machines, 70 infusion pumps, 50 RT-PCR machines, 69 ambulances, as well as other medical equipment and supplies crucial for improving the country’s COVID-19 response. It has also built isolation wards with negative pressure systems and reference laboratories, for the country to be more prepared in facing infectious diseases.
To mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the welfare of low-income households, the Philippines Beneficiary FIRST Social Protection (BFIRST) Project was initiated to support the government’s flagship conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, known as Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps). The BFIRST project aims to strengthen the country’s social protection delivery system to be more adaptive and efficient, focusing on the development and implementation of digital transformation strategy for the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), in addition to supporting the cash grants for the 4Ps.
The BFIRST project is also facilitating the adoption of Philippine Identification System (PhilSys), which enabled services initially under the 4Ps and Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situations program of DSWD. By adopting PhilSys, as a valid proof of identity, the DSWD will be able to improve the overall experience for its beneficiaries with streamlined process in accessing social assistance services while preventing fraud and leakages. The benefits of adopting PhilSys include digitizing and streamlining DSWD’s beneficiary registration and enrolment, establishing a United Beneficiary Database (UBD), identifying and removing duplicate or ghost beneficiaries, and enabling financial inclusion.
The project also promotes the use of digital payments in the distribution of cash assistance. The 4Ps beneficiaries used to receive their grants by withdrawing cash through an ATM or over the counter with their Landbank cash cards. Early this year, the DSWD shifted to transaction accounts for grant distribution enabling the beneficiaries to receive funds from other sources, save their money, and make electronic fund transfers such as online bills payment. As of July 2023, there are 3,493,827 beneficiaries of 4Ps who have access to transaction accounts.
The 4Ps is the Philippine national poverty reduction strategy and a human capital investment program which was institutionalized with the passage of Republic Act 11310 on April 17, 2019. The program supports low-income households invest in the education and health of children up to 18 years old. The program has made significant impactsin reducing total poverty and food insecurity among beneficiaries, and has grown to become one of the largest CCT programs in the world, helping more than 6 million households since its inception. As of July 2023, the 4Ps serves 3,978, 736 active households and is being implemented in 148 cities and 1,481 municipalities across 81 provinces throughout the country. The BFIRST project supports 4Ps’ efforts to enroll new families who fell into poverty especially due to the pandemic and facilitate the transition of families who graduate out of the program.
The Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan - Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi CIDSS) has been supported by the Bank since 2002. Starting in 2014 it received funding under the KC National Community Driven Development Project (KC-NCDDP) with accumulative lending of US$779 million. The KC-NCDDP Additional Financing(AF) was approved by the World Bank Board of Executive Directors in December 2020 and is closing December 31, 2024. KC-NCDDP is implemented in the poorest municipalities in the Philippines, mainly located in areas characterized by high risks to climate change and livelihood constraints. It aims to empower poor and disaster-affected communities to participate in more inclusive local planning, budgeting, and implementation, and improve their access to basic services. Out of 948 poor municipalities in the Philippines, with a poverty incidence greater than or equal to 26.3 (2009 poverty threshold), 828 municipalities or 87% (a total of 19,647 barangays) were covered under the KC-NCDDP, and 676 municipalities (13, 934 barangays) are covered under the AF.
Impact Evaluation (IE) results indicated positive impacts on household consumption that contributed to reduction in poverty with a 12% increase in per capita spending among beneficiary households and an even higher increase (19%) for households that were identified as poor at project start-up. KC-NCDDP has so far funded 39,831 community sub-projects within the areas of basic access facilities (e.g., village roads, footbridges, footpaths), followed by social services (e.g., day-care centers, classrooms, health stations); environmental protection (e.g. flood and river control; and community production facilities and utilities (e.g. electrification and multipurpose buildings). About 319,968 Indigenous People households benefitted from the sub-projects. Implementation of community sub-projects also benefitted women where 34.8% are part of the sub-project's implementation workforce. Since the outset of the pandemic, KC-NCDDP has financed 2,654 isolation units and support training of barangay health emergency response teams in 86% of barangays. More than 2.1 million community volunteers have been mobilized in various positions since 2014.The Project has also contributed to enhanced local governance by providing a mechanism for closer engagement between the municipal local government units (MLGUs) and communities. 99% of municipal local government units (MLGUs) have poverty reduction action plans based on KC-NCDDP participatory processes, and 97% of MLGUs have increased representation of peoples’ organizations (POs) in local development councils.
Following Typhoon Haiyan in 2014, KC-NCDDP spearheaded an innovative response to assist disaster-affected municipalities through the Disaster Response Operations Modality (DROM), which was used again for COVID-19 and other disaster events.
To strengthen the government’s capacity to manage risks from climate change, natural disasters, and disease outbreaks, the Bank has provided the Fourth Disaster Risk Management Development Policy Loan with Catastrophe Deferred Drawdown Option (Cat DDO4). The operation is supported by a technical assistance program to help (i) institutionalize the use of Rehabilitation and Recovery Plans for local government units (LGUs) to rapidly request and access funding from the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (DRRM) Fund; and (ii) integrate climate and disaster risk information of LGUs within the National Government’s central risk data system (GeoRiskPH platform).
The Ready to Rebuild (R2R) program was launched to train communities to be more prepared – to build a culture of preparedness to help local governments and communities anticipate the impacts of disasters and prepare recovery plans even before disasters hit. A total of 350 provinces, cities, and municipalities from all 17 regions in the country have undergone training, including those struck by Super Typhoon Rai. This translates to 1,800 governors, mayors, and technical staff. An additional 450 technical staff from 150 local governments were trained in the use of GeoRiskPH platform to integrate hazard and risk information into the local disaster risk reduction and management plans.
The technical assistance supports strengthening the delivery of community-based DRM related Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) program to equip people in vulnerable local government units (LGUs) with critical and targeted skills to be able to quickly respond to and recover from disasters; increasing the compliance of National Government Agencies (NGAs) and LGUs in climate and disaster budget tagging; integration of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction measures in local investment programs and Provincial Commodity Investment Plans.
The Bank is supporting the Department of Science and Technology, Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, in collaboration with the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, Office of Civil Defense, and Department of the Interior and Local Government in the development and rollout of the PlanSmart Ready to Rebuild Automated Planning Tool for Disaster Rehabilitation and Recovery. This web application was developed to help the government formulate and implement hazard- and risk-informed programs and projects to better prepare for and recover from disasters. Thus far, over 400 participants from the National Capital Region, Central Visayas Region, Caraga Region, Southern Tagalog Region, and Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao have been trained. This resulted in the integration of baseline data of 128 LGUs in the GeoRiskPH platform.
The financing also supported the urgent needs created by the COVID-19 crisis. This is combined with technical assistance to help enhance the capacity of national and local governments in developing effective response mechanisms through emergency cash transfers and Recovery Guide from COVID-19 with suggested strategies and financing options to help communities recover from the impacts of the pandemic.
The Bank’s assistance extends to conflict-affected areas in the country, providing support for service delivery, skills development, and enhanced participatory processes. Supported by five countries and the European Union, the Mindanao Trust Fund (MTF) (2005-2021) aimed to promote peace and development in conflict-affected areas in Mindanao. The MTF funded a series of three Reconstruction and Development Projects (RDPs), which fostered inclusive social and economic recovery, social cohesion, and participatory governance through a community-driven development approach, mainly in the area that in 2019 became the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao. More recently, the World Bank was chosen by the Government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to administer a new multi-donor trust fund to support Normalization, the track of the peace process that covers decommissioning and transformation of camps into peaceful and productive communities. The new Bangsamoro Normalization Trust Fund (BNTF) will be building on the achievements of the MTF.
In the private sector, IFC has been a leader in developing the thematic bond market in the Philippines, helping banks issue green bonds since 2017 for climate-smart projects, including renewable energy, green buildings, and energy-efficient equipment. IFC’s blue, green, and social bonds have helped provide loans to MSMEs, expand healthcare, and improve wastewater treatments services in water scarce areas. IFC supported Ayala Corporation’s first social bond in healthcare for the first green cancer hospital in the Philippines and Union Bank’s social bond which provided 4,000 loans to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in the country. In April 2022, IFC supported BDO Unibank's blue bond issuance to help tackle marine pollution and preserve clean water resources. This was the first blue bond for the Philippines and the first blue bond subscription for IFC globally.
Last Updated: Apr 05, 2024