THE WORLD BANK Group is increasing its financing support for the Philippines by up to threefold starting next year.

In an event on Thursday, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said the country’s annual credit from the bank could average $1.5-2 billion starting next year, three times more than the $600-million annual average lending programmed in the last 10 years. “This will allow us to maximize the bank’s financing support as a donor institution, and its expertise and experience as a knowledge bank in various areas including strengthening governance, human capital development, disaster preparedness, and addressing fragility and conflict, among others. This financing support very clearly helps drive our general effort to build a resilient, and competitive society over the medium term,” Mr. Dominguez said in his speech.

The global lender’s new Country Partnership Framework (CPF) for the Philippines for 2019-2023 has an average lending program of $1.5 billion annually.

Also on Thursday, the Department of Finance (DoF) and the World Bank signed the $400-million loan pact for implementing the Promoting Competitiveness and Enhancing Resilience to Natural Disasters Sub-Program 1. The facility is the first of the three tranches of the three-year loan program worth $1.2 billion that the bank committed to support, called the Promoting Competitiveness and Enhancing Resilience to Natural Disasters Programmatic Development Policy Loan Series.

The bank approved the $400-million loan earlier this week. Mr. Dominguez said the new loan will improve the country’s financial readiness for disaster response, help in formulation of public asset management policies and help insurers deal better with calamities.

He said it will also aid the government in ensuring food security, streamlining government and expanding economic inclusion.

World Bank acting Country Director Achim Fock said the second tranche of the loan program can be expected by the end of next year while the third part is targeted for signing in 2021.

“The World Bank has been working on disaster risk management and disaster risk financing for a long time,” Mr. Fock said during the press conference of the same event.

“Actually, we have a significant and long history of working with the Philippines in these areas and we have a larger program with the government on responding to and enhancing resilience to disasters… It works on asset management, it works on the private sector [and] the insurance market.” — B. M. Laforga

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