The government and the World Bank on Thursday signed a $300-million loan (roughly P15 billion) to provide additional funding for the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, a conditional cash transfer initiative for 4.2 million households.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, on behalf of the Philippine government, and World Bank country director Mara Warwick signed the loan agreement providing additional financing for the 4Ps under the second phase of the Social Welfare Development and Reform Program.
Dominguez said the sustained funding support for the country’s poorest households would go a long way in helping the Duterte administration achieve its agenda of reducing poverty incidence to 14 percent by 2022 and delivering a comfortable life to every Filipino.
He said the 4Ps was an investment in the next generation of Filipinos who needed to be prepared “to reap the benefits of the Philippines’ fast-approaching demographic dividend.”
Witnessing the signing of the loan accord were Secretary Rolando Bautista and Undersecretary Aimee Torrefranca-Neri of the Social Welfare Department.
The additional funding aimed to further strengthen the 4Ps until 2022 by continuing to support the delivery of cash transfers to millions of beneficiaries, improving the project’s implementation performance, monitoring and evaluation procedures and upgrading the key dimensions of the 4Ps’ program management.
It will also help boost early childhood development and fight malnutrition among 8.7 million children from some 4.2 million families currently benefitting from the 4Ps program.
The World Bank contributed $1.26 billion to the 4Ps since it first provided funding support for the program in 2010.
The annual budget for the 4Ps is $1.7 billion (P85 billion). The additional funding from the World Bank will cover 9 percent of the 4Ps budget through June 2022.
“I thank the World Bank for facilitating additional financing for the Second Social Welfare Development and Reform Program. The bank has been a strong and reliable partner in the implementation of our conditional cash transfer initiative called the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps,” Dominguez said after the signing of the loan accord at the Department of Finance office in Manila.
Dominguez recognized the World Bank for its assistance in strengthening the capability of the DSWD as a social protection agency and the setting up of the ‘Listahanan’ database for the 4Ps national household targeting system, “which has already gone a long way toward providing public services and support to those who really need it.”
As the Listahanan database is gradually linked to the National ID system, the targeting of beneficiaries and the efficiency and effectiveness of the 4Ps and other social protection initiatives will dramatically improve, Dominguez said.
Warwick said the World Bank “is pleased that the government continues to strive to achieve even greater impacts from the program, including through innovations and investment in strengthening the Listahanan household targeting system; sharpening the program’s focus on children’s health and nutrition to reduce childhood stunting; and improving the payment system through introduction of digital technology for timely payments.”
A World Bank study “estimated that the country’s cash transfer programs are the second most significant contributor to poverty reduction in the Philippines after individuals’ wage earnings from non-agricultural activities.”