WB helps Philippines increase financial resilience to natural disasters

The World Bank (WB) has approved a 400 million USD loan to help the Philippines increase its competitive capacity, enhance fiscal sustainability and strengthening financial resilience to natural disasters and climate change.

Illustrative image (Photo: www.philstar.com)

The World Bank (WB) has approved a 400 million USD loan to help the Philippines increase its competitive capacity, enhance fiscal sustainability and strengthening financial resilience to natural disasters and climate change.

This loan has a 19-year maturity, inclusive of a 10-year grace period.

In terms of promoting competitiveness, the loan will support the Philippines in ensuring food security and price stabilisation; improving ease of doing business (EODB) and increasing access to economic opportunities.

The loan will also enhance the country’s fiscal sustainability by improving budget planning and financial management, increasing revenue mobilisation and reducing fiscal risks of government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs).

Besides, the funding will help enhance regulation for the Philippines’ private insurance market against natural disasters, increase the efficiency of post-disaster financing and reduce contingent liabilities by creating and managing a public asset registry.

Due to its geographical location, the Philippine archipelago is at high risk to a range of natural disasters, which will worsen with climate change. Main hazards in the Philippines include typhoons, floods, earthquakes, and volcano eruptions.

The country’s deadliest cyclone on record was super typhoon Haiyan in 2013, which claimed about 6,300 lives and caused economic losses of 12.9 billion USD, or 4.7 percent of Philippine gross domestic product.

According to the WB, the Philippines has been identified as the third most vulnerable country in the world to weather-related extreme events and sea-level rise./.

VNA