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Establishing financially inclusive ecosystems for low-income clients, including small and medium enterprises, has become a rising global concern. The Consultative Group to Assist the Poor and the World Bank estimate that around 2.7 billion adults worldwide do not have access to credit, insurance, or savings with a bank or other formal institution. Several studies have argued that financial inclusion empowers the poor to manage their finances and reduce their vulnerability to financial distress, debt, and poverty. The key issues are why formal financial systems are not inclusive, and how they can be made inclusive of the poor. In the Philippines, the government has identified financial inclusion as an important strategy for inclusive growth. This paper discusses the current status of financial inclusion, education, and regulation in the Philippines and measures to foster financial inclusion. The primary policy challenge faced by the government is defining its role in creating the broad and interconnected ecosystems needed for safe and efficient product delivery to the poor.

The paper argues the case for developing more innovative financing schemes for the water supply sector. The use of traditional ODA-dependent financing channeled through government lending institutions has a somewhat moderate success record in developing and improving the water supply sector. There are limitations to the use of public funds and public institutions in financing water delivery systems and it will be helpful to think of PPP or PSP arrangements or schemes that can come up with innovative solutions to address the issues in this sector. The Philippine Water Revolving Fund (PWRF) is one such innovative financing model and there could be others but developing and establishing such models will require the collaborative effort of the concerned stakeholders. Government lending institutions must be forced by policymakers to collaborate with the private sector in solving the long-standing water supply problem for a very large segment of the population. Those government lending institutions have the advantage of ODA funds, which they traditionally use to lend to target borrowers. The ODA funds can be blended with private sector resources, including credit guarantees that have been demonstrated as good credit enhancements, to lower the cost of financing water supply projects.

Various studies showed that total factor productivity (TFP) has not been a source of growth in the Philippines. It seems that factor accumulation, which is not a sustainable source of growth, has underpinned Philippine economic growth. Studies have also shown that the sustained growth of developed countries has ridden on the back of technological advances rather than on increasing use of factor inputs. Total factor productivity improvement is the only route to sustain economic growth in the long run. After a brief review of economic growth and productivity dynamics of the Philippine economy in the past fifty years, the paper provides an estimation of the determinants of total factor productivity and labor productivity. In the light of the empirical findings reported in this paper, some policy levers present themselves as critical in improving productivity growth in the economy. Investments in education, more government expenditure for improving human capital, greater openness of the economy, and macroeconomic stability are indispensable.

The 1991 Local Government Code devolved substantial spending, taxing, and borrowing powers to local government units. Moving governance closer to the people can generate a welfare gain but local governments must have adequate revenues to finance local development. The paper examines the current status of the tax-expenditure assignment and the intergovernmental fiscal relations, and identifies areas for reform. There is a need for a clearer and more accountable assignment of expenditure by eliminating particular sections of the Code, which serve as a route for national government agencies to be engaged in devolved activities, and for politicians to insert funding for pet projects, which distort local decision making and preferences. There is as well a need to review the tax assignment to improve local revenue generation. The allocation of intergovernmental fiscal transfers may be improved by introducing matching grants to improve equalization transfers to local governments, and performance-based grants to motivate greater local revenue mobilization. Without a clear funding source, unfunded mandates imposed on local governments defeats the purpose of the policy objectives set in those mandates. Local government alliances and cooperative undertaking may be a way to provide public goods with inter-jurisdictional spillover benefits. Consolidation, better coordination of local government activities, and resource pooling for better local service delivery are pathways indicated by successful experiences of LGU collaboration.

Local road investments work for growth and poverty reduction in local areas. The paper highlights the importance of investing in local roads and directs attention to the critical role of local government units (LGUs) in improving the local road network. Raising additional monies to fund local roads is only partly a solution. Much more will depend on the quality and strength of governance and adherence to good planning, budgeting, and procurement practices in the national government and local government units. This paper identifies what local government units can do to improve local road networks.

The paper examines the progress being made in local finance reforms and indicates pathways to advance those reforms. A summary of the effects of decentralization is given as a contextual background for the discussion of local finance reforms. The inefficient tax assignment has constrained the mobilization of local tax revenues even as local government units have become very dependent on the intergovernmental fiscal transfer, called the "internal revenue allotment." The paper raises the importance of revisiting the internal revenue allotment formula. It identifies the local finance reforms currently being undertaken and reports the progress being made at the local and national level. The final section comments on the outstanding issues in local finance reform and gives some recommendations.

The Philippines has used the BOT law, as amended to motivate private sector provision of infrastructure. Using examples from selected BOT projects in the country, the paper points out key issues constraining the successful implementation of the BOT approach to infrastructure provision. It also indicates several factors that were instrumental in forging an effective public-private partnership in BOT projects. The paper points out the need to address various issues, starting from the legal framework to the level of responsibilities of the government institutions that are involved in the project cycle, i.e., from project entry level to implementation and completion. Improvements should be introduced at the policy, legal, and institutional frameworks in order to improve the usefulness of this approach to infrastructure development.

A developing economy such as the Philippines has to create an enabling environment for economic growth and development. But how does one nudge forward the creation of such an environment? This paper departs from the usual discourse on the need for effective implementing institutions. Instead, it discusses the critical role played by "supporting" institutions such as independent review institutions or commissions and coordinating institutions in moving forward the policy development process. Those supporting institutions can provide policymakers and the general public an objective assessment of the results of development efforts, performance reviews, and recommendations on future pathways for reform and development. The paper provides concrete examples of Philippine institutions that may be tasked to do such objective ex ante or ex post reviews.

The shift to a market-oriented credit and financial policy was expected to spur rural financing by the private sector that would help usher growth in the agriculture and rural areas. However, the rural areas have continued to suffer from the lack of access to financial services of banks. Despite government efforts to increase the flow of credit towards the rural sector, formal financial institutions have largely ignored the sector. Lack of financial depth and very limited access to financial services continue to hound the rural sector. Mapping out efficient rural finance policies and implementing them remain as critical challenges for policymakers. Although it is impossible to consider in this brief review paper many other interesting papers and studies on rural finance, the literature survey and the rural finance experiences discussed in the paper can hopefully motivate a policy research agenda on rural finance in the immediate future. This paper, thus, discusses recent new research findings and information on rural finance and suggests thematic areas for policy research.

Global markets for goods and services have opened for countries that have made substantial investments in technological innovations in transportation, communications and production techniques, inventory management and the rapid rate of innovation in financial instruments, among others. This study presents in broad strokes a chronicle of infrastructure development in the Philippines in the last twenty-five years. It covers the infrastructure experience across the Marcos regime to the Estrada administration. The main objective of this paper is to flag those gaps and issues for future research, policy analysis and policy formulation. It calls particular attention to several constraints, e.g., large budget deficits faced by the national government, inefficient government implementation of infrastructure projects, unclear policy and regulatory framework for private participation in infrastructure. Among others, it brings attention to the design of the regulatory framework for infrastructure that would be necessary to motivate private sector participation. It is important to consider an appropriate regulatory framework to ensure fair competition, adequate returns to the private investor and consumer welfare. It is equally important to develop the appropriate incentives that should inform that regulatory framework.

The EDSA bus market is fiercely competitive. In theory, allowing competition among many bus operators is expected to result in cost-effective and reliable transport services, and efficient use of roads. However, in reality, the outcomes are far different: daylong traffic jam and poor bus service along Metro Manila's most important road artery. This paper examined an option proposed by some quarters that consolidating bus operation along EDSA will solve road congestion. It was thought that having fewer but bigger bus operators will be the solution. Based on a review of country experiences, this paper argues that one way to address road congestion and other market failures in the bus markets is to shift the regulatory framework for bus transport services from the current competition "in the market" (the status quo) toward competition "for the market". Bus consolidation is an initial step to relieve the roads of traffic congestion, but it is not a sufficient condition for sustainable quality bus service. However, casting bus consolidation within a competition for the market regulatory framework presents a better and more workable option for improving bus transport services in EDSA. The alternative regulatory approach called "competition for the market framework" provides a stronger incentive for bus operators to consolidate because a competitive tendering mechanism is used to select an optimum number of formal bus transport operators that will serve the market. Government takes more control of critical aspects of bus services (design of the bus network, quality standards, frequency, among others), which, thus, provide an opportunity to address the market failures that are inherent in liberalized urban bus markets. The government via its pipeline of bus rapid-transit (BRT) projects--including one being prepared for EDSA--seems to lean in favor of this framework. To be effective and to encourage the application of this new framework also to non-BRT corridors, complementary reforms have to be implemented in parallel and these would include improving the capacity of regulatory agencies, institutions (rules of the game), procurement, contract monitoring, and traffic management.

This paper discusses governmental fiscal support for financing long-term infrastructure projects in ASEAN countries. More specifically, it discusses the role of guarantees and subsidies in promoting public-private partnership (PPP) projects. It draws on case studies of Philippine and Indonesian PPPs, and information from secondary sources to highlight the critical role of such fiscal support in making feasible the financing of long-term infrastructure projects that may be economically beneficial but commercially or financially unviable without such support. The paper points out the need for a strong fiscal position and analyzes the implications of guarantees and subsidies on fiscal management. An important insight is the need to secure budgets for long-term infrastructure projects, which may be done through a medium-term expenditure framework. Based on the analysis of Philippine and Indonesian case studies, it provides specific recommendations to improve the implementation of PPP projects.

It has only been in the recent years that developing countries are increasingly decentralizing the provision of health care to their local governments. This paper explores some key issues related to health decentralization in the Philippines identified in literature and in course of interviews with country officials working in the health care area. Issues of planning and budgeting of health plans, revenue and expenditure assignments in a decentralized health system are discussed. In addition, issues specific to the determinants of local government health spending are closely examined.One of the key questions closely examined is whether there are any incentives for local governments to compete through spending on health in a decentralized system. The question of spatial competition is addressed through an empirical analysis that attempts to test the presence of horizontal and vertical fiscal interactions among local governments in the Philippines using local government health expenditures data. While there is a consistent positive interaction among municipalities in health spending, the interaction of municipalities with provinces is positive but weakly significant. The positive fiscal interaction among local governments is explained as a result of potential competition for health care inputs.