Income disparity, infra deficit tackled in ADB’s 4-year plan
INFRASTRUCTURE deficit, persistent poverty and high income inequality, and social exclusion are what the Asian Development Bank (ADB) needs to address as it introduced its country partnership strategy for the next four years.
ADB has aligned its strategic plan in support of the government’s AmBisyon Natin 2040, a collective long-term vision for the Philippines.
The first development issue that ADB has identified is poverty and high income inequality, since the Philippines is one of the countries that has the highest income inequality and has a 21.6 percent poverty rate, according to ADB’s study in 2016.
“We want to focus on the large income disparities in the country,” said Kelly Bird, ADB Philippines director.
Social exclusion is also one of the major problems in the country’s development, which covers the country’s inadequate education quality and the continuous increase in the number of teenage pregnancies.
Bird said the Philippines has a strong workforce, but has inadequate quality of education.
Infrastructure deficit is also a major problem which slows down the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate.
Bird said the stock of capital goods infrastructure is 35 percent of GDP, which makes the Philippines among the lowest in Southeast Asia.
“What I really like to highlight here is in the past, the Philippines is underinvested in infrastructure quite significantly, which reduces the country’s competitiveness,” explained Bird.
That is why the ADB supports the government’s Build, Build, Build program, which is the government’s way of catching up.
To answer this issue, Bird said the country needs to focus on physical connectivity, urban development and water resource management.
Bird said an estimated US$160 billion investment is needed for the country to catch up with the neighboring countries by 2022.
For 2019-2022, ADB allocated $3 billion in technical assistance, with 59 percent of the total lending pipeline allocated for transportation, 21 percent for public sector management, 7.4 percent for finance, 5.0 percent for water and urban services, 2.5 percent for education and health and 1.7 percent for agriculture and natural resources.
ADB also eyes supporting and promoting public-private partnerships to boost infrastructure investments while highlighting the environment sustainability in all projects.
Bird said ADB promotes local economic development in Visayas and Mindanao to enhance the sustainability and regional integration of urban and rural communities by working together with the local government units.
Bird expressed their support for the solid waste management project in Cebu City and to continue working on the Terminal 2 of the Mactan-Cebu International Airport (MCIA).
Aside from Cebu, Bird also cited an ongoing road project in Dumaguete, a flood integrated control project in Iloilo to be approved next year, and a plant in the western part of the Visayas.
ADB also helped in preparing for the implementation of Cebu-Cordova Link Expressway and other bridge projects in the Visayas.