ODA priority areas to be tackled in March forum

The second Philippine Development Forum (PDF) will be held in March this year to evaluate and decide on priority development areas for official development assistance (ODA), finance officials said over the weekend.

The Department of Finance (DOF) said the PDF would be convened again on the heels of a successful implementation of the targets set by the first PDF held last year in Davao City.

Formerly called the meeting of the Philippine consultative group, the PDF would convene representatives from donor countries, multilateral agencies, local government units, the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the government, private sector and the academe.

Finance Secretary Margarito Teves said the Philippines is finally in a better position to face the donor community since it has made significant progress in the attempt to balance its budget.

"Right now, we are much more optimistic about our capability to provide counter-part funding for ODA-assisted projects," Teves said.

Although this does not mean the government intends to accumulate another collection of ill-managed and loosely-implemented ODA projects, Teves said it would give the government elbow room when laying out projects for ODA financing.

Finance Undersecretary Roberto Tan said this year’s PDF meeting would focus on priority-setting to identify the possible areas of intervention where ODA might be required based on the targets under the Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan.

"It’s going to be an interesting meeting because we were able to do what they asked us to do last year," Tan said. "We have done a major clean-up of our ODA portfolio and we are now more prepared when we implement ODA-assisted projects."

Last year, the first PDF was the largest ever consultative group meeting for the Philippines with 180 participants.

The format of the PDF was also significantly different, with focus on interactive dialogue and development issues rather than development partners’ prepared statements and operational programs.

This year, Tan said the format will be the same and there would also be no session for financial pledges, unlike previous years when the consultative group was used as a pledging session for specific projects and programs of the government.

Tan said the PDF would be structured around five thematic working groups namely: social progress: growth and investments; economic and fiscal reforms; governance; and decentralization.