RP's 2009 ODA disbursements up to $2.44 billion

MANILA, Philippines - Official development assistance (ODA) disbursements rose to $2.44 billion in 2009, reflecting an increase of 132 percent over the previous year’s $1.05 billion, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said yesterday.

According to the preliminary ODA Loans Performance Report of the Project Monitoring Staff of the NEDA, the loans increased due to the huge releases of five program loans from multilateral lenders such as the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank.

“The significant increase in disbursements is largely attributed to tranche releases of five program loans amounting to $1.475 billion funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank (WB),” the report said.

These programs include the Countercyclical Support Loan, the Development Policy Support Programme-Subprogram III, the Local Government Financing and Budget Reform Program-Subprogram 2 and Governance in Justice Sector Reform Program (Subprogram I) that are all funded by the ADB. Also included is WB’s Global Food Crisis Response Program Development Policy Operation.

As of December 2009, ODA loans amounted to $9.7 billion, which financed 100 programs and projects.

The NEDA said that the biggest donor of ODA for 2009 is the Government of Japan-Japan International Cooperation Agency (GOJ-JICA), with a share of 36 percent of total ODA commitments. GOJ-JICA is followed by the ADB (with a 23 percent share ), the WB (with 16 percent), and China (with 10 percent). All other donors comprise 15 percent of total ODA.