WB: Philippines now better equipped to handle future health crises
The Philippines now has the means to fight lingering Covid-19 risks as well as future pandemics, as World Bank loans extended during the pandemic have been implemented satisfactorily.
"The project has continued moving towards its development objectives—to strengthen the Philippines' capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to the threat posed by Covid-19 and to strengthen national systems for public health preparedness," the World Bank said in a Nov. 25 implementation status and results report, referring to the Philippines Covid-19 Emergency Response Project.
To recall, the Philippines borrowed a total of $900 million from the Washington-based multilateral lender for emergency response at the height of the most stringent pandemic lockdowns that wrought the country's worst post-war recession as the economy stopped while the then-fragile health system struggled to contain the deadly virus.
Via restructuring, a $300-million portion of the cumulative World Bank loans had been cancelled, hence closed in October of last year.
As for the remainder, disbursement has been high ahead of the closing date, which had been prolonged by one year until December 2024.
Of the restructured $500-million initial tranche secured in 2020, $14.82-million worth had been canceled, and 96.61 percent or $468.71 million out of the revised $485.18-million financing were disbursed as of September.
The second loan tranche amounting to $100 million that took effect in 2021, meanwhile, already spent $90.11 million, leaving only $9.89 million undisbursed before this funding expires.
According to the World Bank report, an implementation support mission held from August to September this year showed "satisfactory" progress towards achieving the project's development objectives of strengthening the Philippine public health system's Covid-19 response capacity as well as boosting pandemic preparedness nationwide.
"All targets for project development objectives' indicators have been achieved... The overall implementation has been on track," the World Bank noted.
"Most actions agreed upon during the last mission have been completed, and the rest are on track for completion by the project closing on Dec. 29, 2024," it added.