World Bank to lend $245M for Mindanao road repairs

The Philippines will borrow $245 million from the World Bank this year for a project to improve transport infrastructure in Mindanao.

Documents showed that World Bank investment project financing will shoulder the bulk of the $360-billion cost of the Mindanao transport connectivity improvement project to be implemented by the Department of Public Works and Highways.

The multilateral lender’s Washington-based board is expected to approve the loan by mid-December of this year.

“The project aims to improve transport services in the Cagayan de Oro-Davao-General Santos corridor and its catchment area. The proposed project scope includes upgrading of select local roads [in the main corridor], and climate resilient transport asset management and road safety enhancements,” the World Bank said.

In particular, five local roads in central Mindanao spanning 87.1 kilometers—currently paved with a mix of concrete and gravel—will be upgraded, all paved with concrete, and widened within a 20-meter road right of way, the World Bank said. “Pipes and storm drains will be installed and new bridges may be built to replace the old Bailey bridges with limited weight capacity.”

Also, an existing 428.2-kilometer highway between the cities of Cagayan de Oro and General Santos will have safety improvements, including repair of 64.2-kilometers long damaged sections.

“The highway consists of undivided and divided paved road where more than 78 percent of [it] passes [through] urban areas; 16 percent of the road has sharp or very sharp curves and roadside hazards such as aggressive vertical faces, upward slopes, drainage ditches, cliffs, trees, poles, rigid structures, unprotected safety barriers, and large boulders which are present along 98 percent of the length,” the World Bank said.

Highest poverty incidence

The World Bank noted that while Mindanao has been regarded as the country’s food basket supplying more than two-fifths of the Philippines’ food requirement, the island had the highest estimated poverty incidence of 33.9 percent last year, compared with Luzon’s 17.2 percent and Visayas’ 30.8 percent.

“The region’s underdevelopment is largely due to civil conflict and low economic growth underpinned by under-investment in infrastructure, particularly by the private sector due to the perceived civil conflict,” the World Bank noted.

The project will traverse six provinces and three highly urbanized cities in the southern island—areas without any deep conflict between government forces and armed rebel groups, the World Bank said.

This forthcoming loan formed part of the total of 11 loans worth $1.92 billion in the World Bank’s near-term lending pipeline for the Philippines.