The United Nations is extending half a billion dollars worth of official development assistance (ODA) grants in the next five years to help the Philippines meet the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 and AmBisyon by 2040.
Based on the Philippine-United Nations Partnership Framework for Sustainable Development (PFSD) 2019 to 2023, the UN will be extending $506.627 million for education and health; economic and environment; and peace-related projects.
The PFSD is the new framework to be used by the UN system in the Philippines. This replaced the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) 2012 to 2018, which had a budget of $368.5 million.
“The PFSD illustrates our renewed commitment for development cooperation and partnership. While the framework reflects strong government ownership, it also intends to leverage shared opportunities and the respective comparative advantages of the government and UN Country Team, toward efforts that are catalytic, path-breaking and innovative,” said Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia in his opening remarks at the signing of the PFSD in Pasig City on Wednesday.
The lion’s share of the assistance, amounting to $205.38 million of the total ODA, was allocated for projects that fall under the prosperity and planet pillar, or projects that have to do with the economy and environment.
The framework will also finance $174.23 million worth of projects under the people pillar or human development and $127.02-million worth of peace-related projects.
The funds, UN Resident Coordinator Ola Almgren said, will be sourced mainly from partnerships and cofinancing options. Currently, only $49.95 million of the funds are available for use and the remaining $456.68 million will still be sourced elsewhere.
Almgren said the funding needed for the PFSD will be sourced from all UN agencies operating in the Philippines together with other partners, including the national government.
“The other part [funds that are not yet available] is what we need to mobilize here at the country level,” Almgren said in a news briefing on Wednesday. “We do that through third party cost-sharing.”
The top 3 largest sources of total funding are the United Nations Development Programme with $202.67 million; United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), $112.18 million; and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), $45.55 million.
In terms of core funding or available funding, the largest is contributed by Unicef with $17.38 million followed by the United Nations Population Fund with $11.5 million and the IOM, $8.05 million.
The PFSD also showed that the agencies that need to raise the largest amounts were Unicef with $94.8 million; IOM, $37.5 million; and the World Food Program, $27.9 million.
The partnership between the Philippines and the UN stretches as far back as the birth of the United Nations, as the Philippines was one of 51 founding member-states in 1945.
Since 1995 the partnership has been guided by Philippines-UN country plans, which were called the United UNDAF. The PFSD is the new strategic framework guiding the partnership between the Philippines and United Nations, from 2019 to 2023.
It redefines the nature of UN System engagement in the Philippines from one that provides “development assistance” to a collaboration in a strategic partnership.