Philippines

This policy note analyzes the composition of public expenditures that support devolved services (including the resource allocation decisions that support these expe... Show More + nditures), an assessment of the quality of local service delivery based on available local data, and an evaluation of the interactions between various public entities that finance and provide local services. The report includes reviews of local capital investments, local road sector, and the local health sector. The findings from the case studies suggest the need for the rationalization, harmonization, and simplification of local planning and budgeting requirements prescribed by national government oversight agencies. There is also strong need for the national government to clarify the assignment of administrative responsibility for local roads in order to improve the planning and coordination of investments. Finally, the Department of Health should continue to build on its comprehensive reform agenda, which is focused on creating incentives for the local government unit's health sector performance and strengthening systems of local accountability for the province-wide health system. Show Less -

The goal of this report is to take stock of the existing evidence on the impact of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) on poverty, to examine the curre... Show More + nt challenges that an extension of CARP would face, and to suggest directions toward achieving progress on land reform given the financial and policy constraints faced by the program. The report starts by examining the nature and relevance of the challenges that an extension of the land reform program will face. It then addresses the role of land reform in rural development and poverty reduction. The impact of agrarian reform on land markets, access to credit and, more broadly, on the competitiveness of small farms is then examined, separating the case of rice and corn lands from that of sugarcane plantations, the latter taken as an important 'case-study' of the broader plantation sector. Implications for redesigning the program are then drawn, focusing in particular on the need to more closely involve important actors in the current process of rural development. The report finally considers the institutional changes that will be required. Show Less -

The Water Resources Sector Strategy (WRSS) supports implementation of the Bank's 1993 Water Resources Management Policy, using the experience updated internationall... Show More + y, with water resources and management. This country Water Resources Assistance Strategy (CWRAS) identifies the Philippines principal water resource challenges, the current situation, how the Bank is assisting at present, and what it should in the future. In summary this strategy can be summarized as follows: 1) Bank assistance should translate the rhetoric of water conservation, and sustainability, into practical-realistic programs, and policies; 2) focus should be on promoting cooperation of local government units (LGUs), and water users themselves, and, on following a "bottom-up and top-down" approach, that includes active participation of water users, in addition to developing infrastructure, and management into water resources projects; 3) water resource management (WRM) initiatives should respect cultural practices, which have evolved to provide sustainable WRM in a micro-watershed context. Indigenous water systems provide clues to how WRM should be rooted in the socio-cultural context; and, 4) prioritize support for the use of economic instruments in managing river basins, facilitating private sector participation I the water supply and sanitation sector, and supporting the decentralization of responsibilities for WRM. Show Less -