...the cost-efficient program

ADB cites PHL conditional cash transfer program as cost-efficent

 

November 27, 2012

GMA News

 

 

A new study by the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Independent Evaluation department cited the Philippines’ conditional cash transfer program as an exemption to most social protection systems in Asia which “fall far short of meeting the needs of the poor and vulnerable even though better safety nets can be affordable for poorer countries.”

 

 

According to the bank’s Social Protection Strategy study, “In the Philippines… the government’s conditional cash transfer program to uproot extreme poverty costs less than 0.5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, yet reaches 15 million people.”

 

 

It described the Philippine process as “regular cash payments to mothers conditional on their children attending school and public health clinics.
 

“After just three years of implementation, evaluation findings show positive results on elementary education school enrollment and beneficiary households spending more on the health and education of their children,” the Manila-based multilateral lender noted in a statement Tuesday.
 

“Governments around the world tend to scramble to adopt social protection programs in times of crisis,” said Independent Evaluation director general Vinod Thomas. “But comprehensive systems built in stable years are much more effective in coping with the human impact of future economic or political crises or natural disasters,” Thomas added.
 

The banks said that “despite high economic growth in much of the region, public spending on social protection in Asia and the Pacific is lower than in any part of the world except for sub-Saharan Africa.”

 

 

This was because of “recent economic and financial crises, food and fuel emergencies, and the rapidly increasing frequency of natural disasters [which] have starkly exposed the inadequacy of the region’s national social protection systems to guarantee a minimum level of subsistence and meet people’s basic needs.”

 

 

The ADB study found convincing evidence that social protection programs, especially well designed safety nets that transfer resources to the poor, can reduce the depth and severity of poverty and inequality.

 

 

Widening wealth gaps are also drawing attention to the need for greater social protection in Asia, where income disparities over the past two decades have widened in 11 countries that account for more than four-fifths of the region’s population, the bank said.

 

 

However, in India, the government distributes food, fuel, and fertilizer instead of cash, and these subsidies are vulnerable to misuse and leakage, the bank noted. In addition, such subsidies generally cost more, benefit the better off than the poor, and are politically difficult to unwind.

 

 

Rapid social and demographic changes are highlighting the need for affordable pensions, health insurance, and childcare. As such, social protection needs to be higher on their development agenda, according to the study.

 

 

Its main author Joanne Asquith said that “social protection systems are not best built by providing a one-off response to a crisis, but that’s when political support for social protection is usually highest.

 

 

“Development partners need to step up their engagement with governments to sustain political support for social protection in stable years,” she added. — EST/VS, GMA News

...the PH gender equality ranking

PH ranks 6th in WB on gender equality

 

By Ted P. Torres

The Philippine Star

06/24/2012

 

 

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines ranks sixth out of 129 countries in gender equality, a World Bank (WB) study showed.

 

But WB country director Motoo Konishi said there are a lot of challenges remain despite the country’s advancement in gender equality.

“The maternal mortality rate is still very disturbing, cultural differences among the indigenous people still discriminate against women and of course, the prevailing poor economic conditions threatened by increasing natural disasters,” Konishi said at the formal launching last Thursday of the study entitled “Toward Gender Equality in East Asia and the Pacific.”

Konishi added that economic growth would not be sustainable unless the Philippine government puts in place more policies that encourage gender equality.

The WB report said worker productivity in the Philippines and the rest of the East Asia and the Pacific region has the potential of expanding by 18 percent if women are given wider space.

WB lead economist and principal author of the report Andrew Mason said East Asia and the Pacific region is vast and diverse, with large differences in economic and social progress, including toward gender equality.

“In some ways, women in the region are better positioned today than ever before to participate in, contribute to, and benefit from development. But much more needs to be done,” Mason said.

The report noted that Filipino women only get 76 percent of what men earn. Also, women in the Philippines and the rest of the region are more likely to work in small firms, the informal sector and lower-paid sectors.

“Healthier, better educated mothers have healthier, better educated children. So if we can make the right decisions and allocate the right resource now, we are also investing in the next generation of Filipinos,” the report said.

Social Welfare and Development Secretary Corazon Soliman, for her part, said much remains to be done even though the Philippines has achieved much in encouraging gender equality.

“If human beings were discriminated according to gender, then development is incomplete,” Soliman said.

She said of the 7.4 million underemployed in the country, 32.4 percent or 2.4 million are women, while 67.6 percent or 5 million are men.

Soliman also noted that a woman heads one in every five families and has more income compared to a male-headed family.

“In addition, these female heads are more highly educated than the male-led families,” she said.

Soliman said majority of micro-borrowers are women, as they are considered more credit-worthy than their male counterparts.

She said the Philippines is also known globally for having two female heads of state.

“However, men continue to dominate majority of the senior posts in electoral positions where women account for only 23.2 percent,” she said.

---

...the smart awardee

Smart Communications bags 3 int’l awards

Philippine Daily Inquirer

Saturday, June 23rd, 2012

 

 

MANILA, Philippines—Mobile telecoms giant Smart Communications Inc. recently bagged three major international awards, including top honors as Operator of the Year, at the  2012 Asia Communication Awards (ACA), winning over Singapore’s Singtel and StarHub, Australia’s Telstra Global, and Laos’ Unitel.

The only Philippine telecom company recognized at the ACA’s Annual Awards Dinner held in Singapore, Smart reaped the biggest number of operator accolades. It also won awards for the Netphone (the world’s first smartphone backed by an operator-managed system) under the Innovation Award category, and Secured Health Information Network and Exchange (SHINE) (Smart’s flagship mHealth program), under the Best Emerging Market Initiative category.

Smart is no stranger to the ACA, having been recognized by the prestigious telecom tilt in 2011 as Operator of the Year and Best in Green Technology.

Its key programs made it to the list of finalists of this year’s ACA: Green Merchandising Program, under the Green Technology Award; Jump Experience Center (the Philippines’ first multidimensional experience center of Smart and mother firm PLDT) under the Customer Service Initiative category; and SmartCares (the country’s first customer care channel on social media for a telco) under the Social Media Initiative category.

Smart president and CEO Napoleon L. Nazareno was also nominated for CEO of the Year.

Smart officials Perry Bayani and Gio Bacareza received the awards from Paul Michael Scanlan, Huawei vice president for solution, sales & marketing.

The ACA recognizes the achievements of Asian telecom companies and individuals responsible for the innovations, achievements and new services that are helping shape the future of the industry.

Organized by Total Telecom, the ceremony is one of the highlights of CommunicAsia, the annual information and communications technology exhibition and conference held in Singapore that showcase key and emerging technologies.

...the model

WB: Phl a model for cash transfer By Neil Jerome Morales The Philippine Star Updated April 21, 2012

WASHINGTON – The World Bank (WB) has tagged the Philippines as a model in providing a social safety net that cushions the impact of global financial and economic problems.

The Philippines, for its part, wants to improve its Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4P) by lengthening the period that beneficiaries receive cash.

“We at the Bank have helped extend conditional cash transfer programs to about 40 other countries. So we had the Philippines (Social Welfare) secretary here and they have expanded to three million families,” World Bank president Robert Zoellick said on Thursday, at the start of the 2012 WB-IMF Spring Meetings here.

“Let us focus on basic safety nets for every country to deal with the volatility and uncertainty, because the other lesson we learned is if you wait until the crisis, it is too late,” Zoellick added.

The Philippines began its 4P or the conditional cash transfer program in 2008, targeting to regularly provide cash to 5.2 million households.

“In the General Appropriations Act, we were given P39 million to add 700,000 beneficiaries this year and we have done so,” Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman told The STAR in a forum at the sidelines of the meetings.

“We are on target and we are now at three million households. What we are doing now is strengthening and ensuring that we are doing well,” Soliman said.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development wants to reach 5.2 million households in 2015.

But new plans are under way for the safety net program of the country.

“We are reviewing it to increase the age because we want to make it 0-18 years old. That would require additional funds so that is what we are looking at and we are doing some computation if we can afford it,” Soliman said.

To date, 4P helps keep 0-14-year-old children in school through $7 per month aid per child, with a maximum of three children per household.

“We are looking at the need for children to finish high school,” Soliman said.

Fourteen-year-old children are usually in second or third year of the four-year secondary school curriculum.

Under the K+12 basic education program that will be implemented this year, students will have four years of junior high school (Grades 7 to 10) and two years of senior high school (Grades 11 to 12).

Soliman said the department can implement its lengthened aid as early as 2014 if there is sufficient funding, which is still subject to approval of the Department of Budget and Management.

The World Bank said that worldwide, three out of five people in developing countries and four of five people in the world’s poorest countries lack safety net coverage.

The World Bank said countries are struggling to protect their most vulnerable citizens from the negative impacts of global financial volatility and food and fuel price hikes.

“Effective safety net coverage overcomes poverty and promotes economic opportunity and gender equality by helping people find jobs, cope with economic shocks, and improve the health, education, and wellbeing of their children,” Zoellick said.

“There is a push for the national government to deliver education, health and infrastructures well because people need it,” Soliman said.

The World Bank said expanding cost-effective safety nets like cash transfers, food assistance, public works programs, and fee waivers help countries respond to crises.

“It is not a question of whether countries can afford to have safety net programs... It is whether we can afford not to have them,” said Ato Sufian Ahmed, Minister of Finance and Economic Development of Ethiopia, where the Productive Safety Nets Program has protected millions from famine.

The World Bank Group support for social protection and labor programs reached $11.5 billion in 83 countries during the last decade.

Serious threats

Meanwhile, in its Global Monitoring Report (GMR) 2012, the World Bank said developing nations continue to face serious threats to the mortality levels of child and mother, as well as reducing levels of poverty and potable water.

The World Bank said that the world is significantly off-track on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) to reduce mortality rates of mothers and children under five.

“As a result, these goals will not be met in any developing region by 2015. Progress is slowest on maternal mortality, with only one-third of the targeted reduction achieved thus far. Progress on reducing infant and child mortality is similarly dismal, with only 50 percent of the targeted decline achieved,” the report stated.

WB chief economist and senior vice president Justin Yifu Lin said that high and volatile food price works against the attainment of many MDGs, as they erode consumer purchasing power and prevent millions of people from escaping poverty and hunger.

“Dealing with food price volatility must be a high priority, especially as nutrition has been one of the forgotten MDGs,” Lin added.

The report stressed that a fragile global economy would slow down human development goals.

The report estimated that 1.02 billion will remain in extreme poverty in 2015.

“According to our projections, an estimated 1.02 billion people will still be living in extreme poverty in 2015.

Clearly, assistance must be leveraged in new ways if we are to improve food security and nutrition, particularly for the poor and vulnerable,” said Jos Verbeek, lead author of the report and lead economist for the World Bank.

Regional progress towards the MDGs is uneven.

The report said that while upper middle-income countries are on track to achieve most targets, low-income or fragile countries are lagging, with only two goals achieved or on-track.

What is worse is that commodity prices remain volatile while food prices are also declining, it said.

The World Bank, however, said that complicating matters is that development assistance is starting to dry up or shrink due to the crisis as well as the strengthening of some currencies in the Asian region. – With Ted Torres

 

...the peacekeepers

Pinoy peacekeepers in Golan Heights receive UN medals

 

 

December 24, 2011

GMA News

 

 

Filipino soldiers stationed at the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) received UN medals at a recent ceremony at Camp Ziouani in the Golan Heights.

The Department of Foreign Affairs also said newly-promoted enlisted military personnel formally received their ranks at the ceremony on December 13.

"(Philippine) Ambassador Generoso Calonge led the pinning of the ranks of newly promoted enlisted military personnel, while UNDOF Force Commander Major General Natalio Ecarma III led the pinning of UN medals to selected UN Filipino soldiers," the DFA said,

Ecarma congratulated the recipients of the UN Medal for the service they have rendered during their tour of duty in the Golan Heights.

He noted that the award from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon recognizes the professionalism and dedication of Filipino soldiers through these medals.

"These medals are testament to the contingents' dedication to the call of duty, performing their assigned tasks with the highest degree of professionalism and standard," Ecarma said.

Ecarma also encouraged the entire Philippine contingent to continue the good work and strive more in achieving UNDOF's goal of "One Mission, One Team, One Goal."

Meanwhile, Calonge encouraged the Philippine contingent to do their utmost in the service of the Philippines despite being far from home.

"You and I are not so different. We in the diplomatic service feel the same of missing our loved ones who are left behind while we continue to serve our country," he said.

"I could relate to what a soldier could feel. I also wore the same uniform during my younger days and I have had many experiences during my tour of duty in southern Philippines," he added.

Calonge expressed hopes that Filipino soldiers would continue maintaining the highest standard of excellence. - VVP, GMA News

 

 

...the UN development perspective

UN to invest  $375.7M for PHL development

GMA News
28 November 2011

The United Nations and the Philippine government on Monday launched the UN Development Assistance Framework or UNDAF under which $375.7 million will be allotted to help national and local agencies strengthen their capacities to deliver social services.  

“This is a statement of commitment by the UN to align the Organization’s development initiatives with the Philippine Development Plan for 2011-2016, which is the national government’s blueprint for inclusive growth,” the US said in a statement citing UN Resident Coordinator Dr. Jacqueline Badcock.  

The UNDAF serves as a framework for the UN Country Team (UNCT) in the Philippines in its strategic responses to the development priorities of the country, the UN said.

    “… [T]he UNDAF 2012-2018 is partnership-based, and will be implemented in accordance with the UN philosophy of ‘Delivering As One,” Badcock. 'Cost-effective impact'   This means all 25 UN agencies operating in the Philippines will converge “their respective programs when possible to have a greater, more cost-effective impact,” the UN said. 

 Under the seven-year UNDAF program, which starts next year, $147.2 million in development assistance will be used to strengthen capacities of national and local agencies to deliver quality social services for the poor.  

Also, $46.5 million will be used to generate employment through sustained and “green” growth.   For governance, the UNDAF is giving $67.2 million and $114.8 million to “strengthen national and local resilience to climate change, threats, and disasters.”  

To fund the development aid package, the US said it will source $79 million from regular UN sources and the rest from other sources.   Badcock and Socioeconomic Planning Secretary and NEDA Director-General Cayetano Paderanga Jr. signed the 2012-2018 UNDAF on July 21, 2011. — VS, GMA News