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The Philippines obtained a $ 600 million loan from the World Bank to finance two of its social programs aimed at improving the lives of low-income families.
In a statement Wednesday, the World Bank announced that it approved a $ 600 million loan for the Philippine Beneficiary’s FIRST Social Protection Project. The amount will go to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
According to the Washington-based lender, at least 4 million families will benefit from the loan grant that will finance the social interventions Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) and Fast, Innovative and Responsive Service Transformation (FIRST).
Ndiame Diop, country director for Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, noted that cash transfer programs like 4Ps give the poor the means to spend, especially in tough times like this. As a domino effect, this spending circulates at the grassroots level and in the process will generate economic activity.
“We are pleased to support the government’s efforts to maintain social protection for the poor and most vulnerable families,” Diop said.
“These efforts are critical to ensuring that your children can stay in school and stay healthy while the country takes steps to control this pandemic. In these difficult times, cash transfers to the poor and vulnerable indirectly support local economies and boost prospects for recovery, ”he added.
In addition, the project will finance the use of digital platforms and technologies by DSWD for the distribution of cash grants to beneficiaries.
It is believed that the move to digital will speed up procedures and streamline systems that will improve DSWD’s mechanisms for finding qualified recipients. Diop said that government-to-pay systems helped countries around the world minimize the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Yoonyoung Cho, senior economist and leader of the project task force, explained that modernizing social programs such as 4Ps increases the number of beneficiaries, as it streamlines the registration of beneficiaries in the government database to facilitate monitoring.
Yoon said the project will also allow DSWD to expand its coverage for poverty alleviation programs, as well as enhance its response measures for future crises. One of the key results of the $ 600 million loan is the creation of a unified database of beneficiaries for DSWD interventions integrated with the national identification system.
