The government will roll out a $627-million poverty-alleviation program in rural areas by August next year.
Dubbed as the Philippine Rural Development Program (PRDP), the government will seek a loan of $500 million from the World Bank to fund the initiative.
“The PRDP is an ‘upscale’ Mindanao Rural Development Program [MRDP]. It will be implemented nationwide possibly by August 2013,” said Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala in a news briefing on the Eighth World Bank Implementation Support Mission held in Quezon City on Tuesday.
World Bank lead rural-development specialist Carolina Figueroa-Geron noted that the Philippine government will set aside $120 million as counterpart fund, while a $7-million grant will come from the Global Environment Facility.
The Department of Agriculture is expected to submit a proposal on the initiative to the National Economic and Development Authority’s (Neda) Technical Board soon. The technical board will be tasked to evaluate the proposal.
Once approved, the PRDP will be implemented for six years or until 2019.
Alcala noted that the government decided to expand the MRDP to include not just Central Philippines and some areas in Luzon, but also other rural areas all over the country.
Earlier, DA officials said the government was seeking $300 million from the World Bank to fund a program that would help the government finance infrastructure and other developmental projects in five regions in Luzon and the Visayas.
Alcala said the implementation of the PRDP is expected to be smoother as the program’s guidelines have incorporated the lessons learned from the rollout of the second phase of the MRDP (MRDP2).
Felizardo K. Virtucio, World Bank’s team leader for MRDP2, noted that the second phase of the program was delayed for two years because of a policy issue concerning the sharing scheme between the local government units (LGUs) and the national government.
The DA is now seeking the nod of the Neda Board to extend MRDP2 for two more years or until 2014. The second phase of the rural poverty-alleviation program started in 2007 and was supposed to conclude this year.
To improve the capacity of LGUs to identify and implement projects under the program, the Australian Government Overseas Aid provided a $3-million grant.
WB officials will conduct the eighth review of MRDP2 from July 31 up to August 31. Alcala said he is confident that the program will get another “satisfactory” rating from the WB.
In the previous review mission in February, the MRDP2 got a satisfactory rating from the WB due to a better disbursement rate and on-track implementation of its various subprojects.
MRDP2 is the second-phase poverty-alleviation initiative of the DA implemented in 225 towns in Mindanao. Its total funding of $123.9 million comes from the $83.75-million loan portfolio from the World Bank and counterpart funds from the national government and the partner LGUs.