ODA disbursements reach $1.67 B in 2011

MANILA, Philippines - Total official development assistance (ODA) disbursements reached $1.67 billion in 2011, slightly higher than the $1.61 billion recorded in 2010, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) yesterday reported.

Total ODA disbursement rate dropped from 80.2 percent to 77.6 percent.

NEDA Project Monitoring Staff Director Roderick Planta attributed the increase in disbursement level to the $500-million single tranche release of the World Bank’s Disaster Risk Management Development Policy Loan.

Data from NEDA showed that the total disbursement ratio or the percentage of actual disbursements to the net loan available, during the year, went up to 30.1 percent in 2011 from 29.5 percent in 2010.

On the other hand, total ODA loan net commitment for the year rose to $8.54 billion, down by $1.07 billion from 2010.

Last year’s ODA disbursement financed a total of 78 loans, consisting of $6.99 billion or 82 percent for 70 projects loans and $1.54 billion for eight program loans.

Government implementing agencies achieved an average of 78 percent of their target disbursements in 2011 or three percent lower than the rate in 2010, Planta said.

Availment rate, on the other hand, reached 75 percent in 2011 from 80 percent in the previous year.

“There are 18 ongoing project loans that have disbursement rates below 50 percent due to procurement, financial, and other several issues. But if we compare the total number of project loans with low disbursements with that of the previous year, it remains the same,” he said.

In terms of sources, the biggest ODA funding source came from the Government of Japan’s Japan International Cooperation Agency (GOJ-JICA) but the agency’s actual share in the total ODA commitment went down compared to the level in 2010.

JICA had a share of 32 percent of total ODA commitment, a decline from the 36.40-percent share in 2010.

The World Bank came in as the second largest ODA source, with 29.1 percent.

According to NEDA, China was the fourth biggest source of total ODA commitment, with a 13.36-percent share as of 2011.

The Asian Development Bank’s commitment share, on the other hand, went down to 8.53 percent as of 2011 from 10.18 percent in 2010, data from NEDA also showed.