The World Bank has cited progress in the Department of Agriculture's (DA) rural development project scale-up, for which the Philippines borrowed $600 million or over P34 billion last year.
"The overall project's initial implementation performance is considered satisfactory. Implementation and institutional arrangements are in place and working, including its systems and procedures which build on the experiences and lessons learned from another World Bank-assisted project," it said in an Oct. 9 implementation status and results report.
The Washington-based lender was referring to the earlier Philippine rural development project it green-lit in 2014, which is aimed at enhancing farm and fishery productivity to increase rural incomes, also currently being implemented by the DA.
The DA's new scale-up project, meanwhile, targets improving market access among farmers and fisherfolk as well as hiking incomes from the selected agri-fishery value chains.
For this scale-up loan, the World Bank reported that 35 out of the 45 infrastructure subprojects approved so far have already started the procurement process.
Another 11 enterprise subprojects are undergoing validation, the World Bank noted.
To date, 5.99 percent of the loan proceeds, amounting to $35.95 million or more than P2 billion, have been disbursed.
This investment project financing will end in mid-2029.