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POLICY PAPERS
Comments on the UN Financing
for Development
Paper vis-à-vis Debt Issues
by Maria Teresa D. Pascual,
Freedom from Debt Coalition
Clearly absent in this UN
discussion paper is a section
that deals with how to get
developing countries out of the
debt trap that many already find
themselves in, and how to avoid
it for those developing
countries not yet caught in the
trap. Any serious discussion on
financing for development must
take this into consideration. As
evidenced in the Philippines,
the struggle to develop is
inextricably tied to the
struggle to get out of
indebtedness. Yet the experts
hired by the UN to draft this
paper fail to recognize this.
Worse, in identifying new
financing for development for
middle-income countries like the
Philippines, the paper
implicitly recommends that we
simply borrow more, or enter
into contracts with the private
sector that have tended to be
extremely disadvantageous to the
government, and thereby the
people.
More
Comments on UN Financing for
Development: Systemic Issues
by Maria Teresa D. Pascual,
Freedom from Debt Coalition
This section deals with global
economic governance, and with
the institutions that set and
enforce global rules of economic
behavior. It also proposes the
formation of new institutions to
fill existing vacuums in global
governance. The recommendations
flow out of the following
premise: “Global interdependence
needs global governance.” While
this premise carries a simple,
clear and ostensibly sensible
message, it misses out on many
realities of global
“interdependence”. For this
reason, the recommendations of
the UN Financing for Development
paper with regard to systemic
issues are limited and are not
expected to do much to address
global economic governance.
More
Some Immediate Issues in
Official Development
Assistance to the Philippines*
by Eduardo C. Tadem
Developing countries like the
Philippines have long relied on
Official Development Assistance
(ODA), or “foreign aid” to
finance economic development. In
the fifties and early sixties,
ODA was used primarily for
rehabilitation and institutional
development, was provided by the
United States, and consisted
mainly in grant assistance (ILO
1976). ODA provided 10 percent
of foreign exchange and one
percent of GNP during these two
decades.
More
Financing for Development:
Domestic Resource Mobilization
by Filomeno S. Sta. Ana III
This paper attempts to develop a
civil society policy agenda on
domestic resource mobilization
towards influencing the global
Financing for Development (FfD)
process initiated by the United
Nations. The preparations for
the FfD include a series of
United Nations meetings that
will come out with analyses and
recommendations on a broad range
of financing and related
issues. The process will
culminate in an international
conference in March 2001. The
FfD is an opportunity not only
to address the global concerns
and their impact on the
Philippines but also to provide
a boost to the national reform
initiatives. The FfD can thus
be a means to speed up the tax
reform agenda that the Macapagal-Arroyo
administration has to put in
place.
More
Critique of the Medium-Term
Philippine Development
Plan (MTPDP) for 2001-2004 and
Some Policy
Recommendations from the Basic
Sectors
by Arnel F. de Guzman*
Any discussion on financing for
development cannot be complete
without a critical look at the
Medium-Term Philippine
Development Plan or the MTPDP.
In fact, it should be the
starting point. This is because
the blue print that outlines in
bold strokes the development
path that the Philippines will
traverse under the incumbency of
the executive leadership is
contained in the MTPDP.
Institutionalized by Marcos a
few years after seizing power
through martial law, the plan is
crafted by the government’s
foremost think tank—the National
Economic and Development
Authority (NEDA), a government
agency created by a presidential
fiat for that purpose.
More
Of Paper Boats and Sinking
Economies Development
in an Era of Open Trade: The
Case of the Philippines
by Atty. Wigberto E. Tañada
1st GO-NGO Forum on Financing
for Development
Edsa Shangri-La Hotel,
Mandaluyong City
12 October 2001
Let me go to the heart of the
issue: Is openness to
international trade the magic
formula that will lift the
sinking Philippine economy from
the mire? Or is it just a mere
paper boat that will keep the
economy afloat only in rosy
promises and presidential
speeches? For some decades now,
our government has looked at
international trade as the
solution to our development
problems. Since the 1980s,
successive administrations have
pursued a series of unilateral
trade liberalization programs
covering every sector of the
economy from manufacturing,
services and agriculture. To
say, however, that our
government independently pursued
these programs would be utterly
false. These programs were
actually loan conditionalities
imposed by the International
Monetary Fund and the World
Bank.
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