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THE
Philippine government should maximize government
spending and eliminate graft and corruption to ensure
that it will be able to adequately fund social projects
to achieve the United Nation’s Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs).
This was
one of the prescriptions of Dr. Joseph Lim, from the
University of the Philippines School of Economics,
during Social Watch’s National Consultation on Financing
for Development held in
Quezon City
on Wednesday.
“Although the achievement of the MDGs is on track,
latest data show that close to 25 million Filipinos, or
more than 30 percent of the country’s population, are
considered poor,” said Lim.
The UN’s
MDGs are a set of eight time-bound, concrete and
specific targets aimed at significantly reducing, if not
decisively eradicating, poverty by the year 2015.
Aside
from eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, the UN
seeks to achieve universal primary education, promote
gender equality and empower women, reduce child
mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS and
other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability and
develop global partnerships for development by 2015.
Lim
cited a study undertaken by Dr. Rosario G. Manasan, a
senior research fellow at the Philippine Institute of
Development Studies (PIDS), which estimated that the
financing gap for MDGs in the Philippines to be between
P600 billion and P800 billion, or between $12 billion
and $17 billon.
To plug
this gap and increase its financing for MDGs, Lim said
the government needs progressive taxation and its proper
implementation to increase fiscal revenues, protect the
budget allocated for MDGs from any cuts, and ensure that
the MDG budget will grow as fast as the other budget
items.
“[The
government] should improve social accountability and
transparency for development projects, and reduce
corrupt and wasteful use of funds in the public sector,”
he said.
Lim
noted that the
Philippines,
together with other countries such as
Indonesia,
can consider other ways of mobilizing resources for
financing the MDGs.
The UP
economist said the Philippines should seek more external
development assistance in the form of grants and soft
loans, and pushing for a debt reduction or
“debt-for-MDG” conversion scheme.
“The
current fiscal situation is such that debt servicing is
eating up vital social and economic services, further
reducing the precious funds for MDG financing,” said
Lim.
Lim
urged the UN to launch an international campaign to
change the concept of “debt sustainability” of
international lending institutions.
The UN
system and the United Nations Development Program, he
said, can consider asking the creditors not to look at
the countries’ capacity to pay their debts but on how
debt servicing has hampered debtor-countries’ capacity
to eradicate poverty and achieve the other MDGs. |
