World Bank committed to supporting good governance

MANILA, Philippines - The World Bank is committed to supporting the good governance initiatives of the Aquino administration and will listen to proposals about foreign donor participation in a so-called hybrid public-private partnership (PPP) program, the bank’s president said yesterday.

“I’ve been very impressed with the goals that President Aquino has set for himself,” World Bank Group President Robert Zoellick told The STAR. “The prime purpose (of my visit) is to listen and learn about the reforms and how we can help.”

He said the Philippine economy could “move even faster” if roadblocks were hurdled: “The justice system obviously needs to be strengthened. The infrastructure needs to be strengthened. The business rules and regulations are still complex.”

He also noted that people used to the old system and who benefited from it would oppose reforms.

The highest official of one of the country’s largest sources of official development assistance (ODA) arrived the other night from Washington on the invitation of the Philippine government. He leaves the country tonight after meeting with President Aquino and the administration’s economic team.

Yesterday morning Zoellick visited Barangay 201 in Pasay City’s Sitio Sapasatahai where over 400 families are beneficiaries of the World Bank-supported conditional cash transfer (CCT) program.

Several of the beneficiaries who met with Zoellick asked for an expansion of the five-year CCT coverage to include at least two years of college for their children.

The program requires beneficiaries to keep their children in school and mothers to have regular checkups on maternal health. In exchange, beneficiaries get a monthly stipend that they can withdraw directly through ATMs using CCT cards.

“Obviously the President has put as a first priority the improvements of governance and accountability and transparency, and that’s important not only to stop the corruption and the stealing but it’s also helpful with programs like the one we just saw,” Zoellick said at the end of his visit to the densely populated barangay. “At the World Bank we’ve learned that combining good governance with development strategy is very important.”

The World Bank is also supporting the Philippines in disaster mitigation, with the WB board approving recently a $500-million facility that the country can tap quickly in times of natural calamities.

“If you deploy resources quickly, you lessen the damage,” Zoellick explained.

Asked if the World Bank would be interested in participating in the hybrid PPP, where the government would tap ODA to provide the counterpart funding for private investments, he said he first wanted to learn more “about the timing and scope of the plans.”

In January 2009 the World Bank had debarred seven private contractors and an individual for collusive practices in bidding for two WB-funded road projects in the Philippines.

“We’ve learned some lessons, we’ve put in some special procedures to help with the second version of that,” Zoellick said.

CCT programs have been most successful in Brazil and Mexico. In the Philippines, the World Bank supported the launching of the project in 2007 through the Department of Social Welfare and Development, with the Bank helping in the identification of beneficiaries.

Former WBcountry director Bert Hofman, who is now the bank’s regional chief economist for East Asia and the Pacific and director of the Singapore office, said the CCT in the Philippines is currently the largest among such programs that the WB supports in some 40 countries.

Zoellick said he was also interested in revenue support for the CCT and other development efforts, as well as the effects of the continuing financial turmoil in Europe and the US on the Philippine economy.

Hofman and his incoming replacement, Motoo Konishi, accompanied Zoellick in Pasay yesterday. The WB officials were introduced to CCT beneficiaries by Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman.