PH seeks extension of World Bank-funded community program

The Department of Finance (DOF) has sought to extend until next year the implementation of the World Bank-financed Philippines National Community Driven Development Program while also reducing the loan by $40 million as funds spent so far was deemed already sufficient.

Of the $479-million investment project financing, $439 million was already disbursed to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for its KALAHI-CIDDS National Community Driven Development Project (NCDDP).

The project was aimed at “[empowering] communities in targeted municipalities to achieve improved access to services and to participate in more inclusive local planning, budgeting and implementation,” the World Bank noted.

The loan, which was signed and took effect in 2014, will close on Dec. 31 this year.

In a Dec. 11 letter to the World Bank, the DOF requested a loan restructuring, under which the NCDDP would be extended up to Dec. 31, 2020 to complete the project’s last community empowerment activity cycle in about 150 municipalities.

“The [DOF] has likewise requested the preparation of an additional financing operations for NCDDP, which would be processed and finalized during the one-year extension period,” according to the World Bank.

Also, the World Bank said the DOF had requested to cancel the remaining loan proceeds worth $40 million “since the NCDDP has already withdrawn the peso-equivalent of its financing requirements and has achieved most of its project deliverables.”

“The balance or unwithdrawn loan represents foreign exchange gains,” the World Bank explained.

“The cancellation is not expected to impact the project’s achievement of [its] project development objective and results given that the cancellation amount comes from project savings and does not affect the completion of project activities,” the World Bank added.