Philippines

The International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) Secretariat has prepared this paper to assist Contracting states with a matter raised by the... Show More + delegation of the Republic of the Philippines at the 45th annual meeting of the ICSID Administrative Council on September 23, 2011, as promised at that meeting. By letter dated June 27, 2011,2 the Solicitor General of the Philippines wrote to the ICSID Administrative Council concerning a decision on annulment in Fraport AG Frankfurt Airport Services Worldwide v. Republic of the Philippines. In that case, the ICSID Tribunal award in favor of the Philippines was a Show Less -

The Philippine Government has announced that the 2011 Philippines Development Forum (PDF) will be held on February 26, 2011, Saturday, at the Sofitel Philippine plaza,... Show More + Pasay City under the tentative theme of 'implementing President Aquino's social contract to achieve inclusive growth.' The details of the event will be subsequently announced by the Philippines' Department of Finance through posting at the PDF website (pdf.ph) as well as through circulation to local offices of the development partners. The Department of Finance will issue invitations to, and coordinate with, the other participants outside of the development partners' community. Show Less -

This paper discusses mechanisms of grand corruption in private sector utility provision in developing countries. By the term "grand corruption," the authors abstract... Show More + from the petty corruption that consumers experience - for example, when firms and individuals pay bribes to get water delivery or an electricity connection. The paper focuses on decisions made at the government level involving private sector management, ownership, and provision of utility services. Corruption at that level may influence the pace and nature of private sector involvement and competition in utilities, as well as the level and form of investments, subsidies, and prices. On the basis of a literature review and interviews with firms and regulating authorities in two countries, Tanzania and the Philippines, this paper discusses the levels and determinants of grand corruption in utilities. The paper concludes by discussing a research program to extend this knowledge through a cross-country survey instrument. Show Less -

Every year, the Philippine government spends hundreds of billions of pesos to buy the goods and services it needs to carry out projects and deliver services to its citizens.... Show More + This money comes from the budget that it funds out of its own revenues and from loans and grants extended by foreign sources such as multilateral development banks and bilateral donors. Deciding how to spend this money is a very important responsibility on the part of government leaders and officials, not only because of the large amounts but also the public trust involved. Citizens and taxpayers have a right to expect that their government will spend these funds wisely and honestly, for the greatest public good. Procurement is a key step in the process of getting the best value for the people's peso. The process involves announcing or advertising what the government needs, inviting qualified parties or individuals to offer their bids, evaluating those bids, awarding contracts to the chosen bidders, monitoring their delivery and performance, paying them and recording the results of the whole process for others to see. It also involves making sure that the bidding is fair and transparent to all, and that anyone with a legitimate complaint can be given speedy justice. Show Less -

This working paper draws upon responses from a selection of interviews conducted in mid-2006 with in-country stakeholders and a review of the relevant analytical and... Show More + evaluative material. The aim was to use a client perspective drawn from in-country consultations-to shed light on the experiences of the Bank with its Middle-Income Country (MIC) partners. It provides valuable insights into selected issues faced by many MIC clients, and has been used as a background to the IEG evaluation. The Philippines is an interesting case study in that it is a middle income country (MIC), but at a GNI per capita of only $1,170, it is in the lower MIC category, and close to the bottom threshold of the group ($826). It possesses many characteristics which are symptomatic of the problems faced by lower-income countries. Notwithstanding a recent period of relative calm, its polity is often reported as unstable. The report points out that counterparts identified two problems that led to low levels of borrowing. First, clients were of the view that the Bank had been providing mostly investment loans for individual projects, and yet the government wanted programmatic loans for sectors because their priorities sometimes changed with the circumstances, and they wanted to implement sector-wide reforms for a bigger impact on the economy. Second, clients felt that the Bank's lending cycle was not well synchronized and intertwined with the Philippine budget process. Another reason raised by several counterparts for reduced borrowing was the excessive imposition of conditionality that caused the use of funds to be more restrictive. The report concludes that this past year, the Bank changed its focus and began providing more flexible sector-wide investment loans to the Philippines. Show Less -

Group liability is often portrayed as the key innovation that led to the explosion of the microcredit movement, which started with the Grameen Bank in the 1970s and... Show More + continues on today with hundreds of institutions around the world. Group lending claims to improve repayment rates and lower transaction costs when lending to the poor by providing incentives for peers to screen, monitor, and enforce each other's loans. However, some argue that group liability creates excessive pressure and discourages good clients from borrowing, jeopardizing both growth and sustainability. Therefore, it remains unclear whether group liability improves the lender’s overall profitability and the poor's access to financial markets. The authors worked with a bank in the Philippines to conduct a field experiment to examine these issues. They randomly assigned half of the 169 pre-existing group liability 'centers' of approximately twenty women to individual-liability centers (treatment) and kept the other half as-is with group liability (control). We find that the conversion to individual liability does not affect the repayment rate, and leads to higher growth in center size by attracting new clients. Show Less -

Firms have employed strategic alliances with other firms to effectively manage costs, overcome resource and technology constraints, and enhance competitive position.... Show More + Strategic alliances can lead to productive institutional collaborations in rural financial markets, thereby expanding the array of financial products, and scaling up access of rural households and micro-businesses to financial services. Strategic alliances comprise a new theme in rural finance. The institutions in the study used strategic alliances to tap new capital resources, manage transaction costs, access banking technology and infrastructure, and acquire new skills to provide an expanding array of financial services to wider markets. The authors carefully examine the experiences of selected rural finance institutions, and their strategic allies or development partners in Guatemala, the Philippines, Ghana, and India to draw out the main findings and share lessons that may be applied in other country settings. The study addressed a number of key questions: What motivated the rural finance institution to structure its alliance or partnership with a bank, commercial, or development organization? How are gains from and costs of alliances and partnerships shared between collaborating institutions? What are the key elements that make partnerships or alliances successful, and which conditions lead to unproductive ones? Which financial products and services are best introduced through strategic alliances? Show Less -

This report presents the highlights of the findings and recommendations of the Joint Needs Assessment (JNA) team on the needs in the conflict-affected areas (CAA's)... Show More + in Mindanao, Philippines. These are grouped in the four sectors: human development, rural development, finance and private sector development, and local governance and institutions. The results of the assessment will be used as inputs in designing a program for reconstruction and development in Mindanao, focusing on the CAA's in the island, and financed in part by a multi-donor trust fund to be established for this purpose. The program will be known as the Mindanao Trust Fund - Reconstruction and Development Program (MTF-RDP). Show Less -

This report summarizes the results of the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor's (CGAP) country-level savings assessment in the Philippines. The assessment was conducted... Show More + to test a Country Savings Assessment Toolkit under development as part of CGAP's Savings Initiative.1 The purpose of the toolkit is to help government agencies, donors, international networks, and technical service providers define potential strategies for increasing poor people's access to high-quality deposit services. The toolkit examines evidence on demand for deposit services among poor populations, and identifies opportunities and constraints to meeting that demand. It examines three levels of the financial system: 1) the capacity for small-deposit mobilization among financial service providers ("micro" level); 2) financial infrastructure and second-tier support for the micro-level institutions to reach scale ("meso" level) and 3) public policies and government entities that create an enabling environment (or not) for savings mobilization ("macro" level). It concludes by identifying promising strategies to improve the quality and quantity of deposit services available to poor and low-income households. Show Less -

Over the past 30 years there has been considerable research on the political economy of reform. Yet despite this, little is known about strategies for managing the politics... Show More + of change-moving from a bad to a better equilibrium. Part of the challenge of studying this issue stems from the difficulty of obtaining detailed, so-called "blow-by-blow" information on actual reform processes. From this type of information, one can discern and cull practical lessons on strategy, which by its very nature is about dealing with political barriers or problems as they crop up during the implementation process. This study looks at the sequence of events that ultimately led to the passage of legislation that markedly altered the rules that govern public procurement in the Philippines. The study attempts to distill operationally useful lessons for managing the politics of a reform process. Show Less -