Philippines
Chapter 3 examines water security and its potential benefits for green growth in the Province of Cebu. This chapter is structured into the following four sections: 1) Water security issues in Metro Cebu; 2) Water supply and sanitation; 3) Urban resilience to floods; and 4) Water governance. This chapter benefited from discussions at the 5th OECD Knowledge-Sharing Workshop on Urban Green Growth in Dynamic Asia, held in Cebu on 9-10 December 2015 and supported by the OECD Knowledge Sharing Alliance.
Chapter 2 reviews current policies in Cebu in the following four thematic areas: land use and transport, solid waste management, green manufacturing and energy. Water resource management will be discussed in depth in Chapter 3. The analysis focuses on the following: 1) Current policies in each area. This will give more precise information on the actions taken by various authorities and the policy instruments and tools used to reach goals in each of these areas. It helps to identify gaps between existing opportunities and policy responses. 2) Policy outcomes. Where data were available, the impact of each policy is analysed to assess its effectiveness and to identify options for improvement. 3) Policy synergies and complementarities. To strengthen the impact of urban green growth policies, it is important to assess the extent to which Cebu has integrated areas of opportunity into coherent and effective policy packages. The results present several clear opportunities for green growth and call for urgent policy actions.
This publication is the result of a study on urban green growth in Cebu, Philippines. It analyses the economic and environmental performance of Cebu, assesses the policies and governance practices that can promote green growth, and provides recommendations to enhance Cebu’s green growth potential. Metro Cebu, the second most populated urban area of the Philippines, has been growing faster than any other city in the country. However, despite this economic growth, Metro Cebu still faces many challenges that hinder its green growth. Changing land-use patterns and a growing population have severely strained local infrastructure and the provision of basic urban services, especially water supply, which will be tackled with a special focus in this report. Metro Cebu also faces several natural disasters risks, like floods and earthquakes. Still, the implementation of appropriate policy frameworks is impaired by a lack of both vertical and horizontal co-operation in the metropolitan governance. All these challenges will need to be addressed to build a more sustainable, resilient and greener city.
Chapter 1 examines Metro Cebu’s economic and environmental performance. The first section introduces Metro Cebu’s geographic and demographic characteristics. The second section focuses on Cebu’s socio-economic growth and includes an assessment of: 1) economic performance and structure; 2) foreign direct investment and infrastructure; 3) skills and inequality; and 4) shifting sectorial employment. The third section discusses environmental trends and green growth challenges across six primary sectors. It includes an assessment of: 1) land-use and transport; 2) air pollution; 3) energy performance; 4) CO2 emissions; 5) water supply and wastewater treatment, in addition to solid waste management; and 6) urban resilience. The final section outlines how Cebu is governed.
Urban green growth policies encourage economic development while minimising either negative environmental externalities or the unsustainable consumption of natural resources and environmental assets. Cities play a critical role in national growth, but also generate negative externalities, and thus must be part of national solutions to stimulate growth and address climate change.
The view of policy makers on the role migration plays in development has changed remarkably over the past 20 years. Today, migration has a firm place amongst the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and officials from countries worldwide meet annually to discuss policies that best leverage migration for development at the Global Forum on Migration and Development.
Despite steady economic growth, the Philippine economy is marred by un- and underemployment, contributing to emigration of many people in search of work. This chapter explores what this outflow – and the significant rate of remittance inflows – means for the domestic labour market. It also investigates the role played by labour market programmes – particularly employment agencies and vocational training – in people’s migration decisions. The recommendations for policy are outlined, particularly in terms of how to improve skills matching in the labour market.
The Philippines has a long history of emigration. Indeed since the 1970s the government has actively facilitated overseas working to deal with high unemployment on the one hand, and extended support to overseas Filipino workers on the other hand. Today emigration is part of Filipino culture. This chapter gives a brief overview of migration in the Philippines: its drivers and impact, who the migrants are and where they have gone, and what programmes and support migrants receive in the different phases of the migration process. It also examines what data are available and where the gaps lie. Finally, it lays out the policy and institutional framework covering emigration, immigration and return migration.
In order to provide an empirical foundation to the analysis of the links between migration and policy, the Interrelations between Public Policies, Migration and Development (IPPMD) project used three evidence-gathering tools: a household survey, a community survey, and interviews with representatives of public, international and local organisations to provide additional qualitative information about the migration context in the Philippines.This chapter explains how the sampling for the survey was designed, as well as the statistical approaches used in the chapters that follow to analyse the impact of migration, remittances and return on key policy sectors. The chapter includes a brief overview of the survey findings, including differences across regions and between migrant and non-migrant households. It outlines some of the gender differences that emerged among migrants, particularly in terms of the destination country for emigrants, and the reasons for leaving and returning.
With the right policies in place, migration and remittances can spur development through household consumption and investments in entrepreneurial activities and real estate. The Philippines is one of the world’s largest remittance recipients, offering enormous development potential. This chapter explores the links between migration, remittances and investment in the Philippines, and asks how policies on investment, financial services, and financial literacy training could help that potential be fulfilled. It examines whether remittances are linked to business and real estate ownership, and the degree to which return migrants are investing productively. It also reports on households’ access to the formal banking sector through the possession of bank accounts, and the extent to which they are reached by financial literacy programmes.
The Philippines has developed institutions, policies and good practices for governing the various phases and types of migration by virtue of decades of experience as a source country for international migrants. The creation of the Sub-Committee on International Migration and Development (SCIMD) in 2014 was one step forward in its pursuit of multi-level migration governance. The policy-making approach has also evolved from a primary concern to increase overseas employment opportunities, to an emphasis on migrant protection and the linkages with development. Recent attention to development has led to the inclusion of international migration in the two national development plans, the Philippine Development Plan 2011-2016, which continued in the newly approved Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022.
Education plays a crucial role in development and growth. Migration and remittances have the potential to help improve educational outcomes and build future human capital stocks, but they also raise concerns about “brain drain”, as well as the impact on children left behind. This chapter investigates the interlinkages between education and migration in the Philippines, focusing on the impact of migration on educational expenditures and school attendance rates, the role of educational attainment in emigration decisions, and whether emigration and return migration are likely to affect human capital. It also explores whether and how education programmes such as school meals, conditional cash transfers and scholarships affect migration decisions. The findings have policy relevance in terms of matching education to the demands of the labour market, and meeting the increased demand for educational services in both the public and private sectors.
Migration’s positive contribution to development in the Philippines is well recognised and targeted by policies designed to maximise its benefits. But less clearly understood is: i) how migration affects a variety of key development sectors in the country, including the labour market, agriculture, education, and investment and financial services; and ii) how policies in those sectors can enhance, or undermine, the development impact of migration.The Interrelations between Public Policies, Migration and Development (IPPMD) project in the Philippines was conducted between 2013 and 2016 to explore these links through both quantitative and qualitative analysis. This chapter provides an overview of the project’s findings, highlighting the ways in which migration (comprising emigration, remittances and return migration) can boost development, and analysing the sectoral policies in the Philippines that will allow this to happen.
Agriculture contributes only about 10% of the Philippines’ economy, which is diversifying rapidly. Nevertheless, rural and agricultural poverty is deepening and it has become common for rural residents to move within the Philippines but also internationally to the Gulf or other Asian countries to seek work. The Philippine government views agriculture as an important component of its development strategy. This chapter explores data gathered from the IPPMD survey of 593 farming households across the country to understand how migration is affecting the sector and how agricultural policies influence people’s migration decisions. The findings have policy relevance in terms of the role of emigration and return migration in diversifying the rural economy, and the role of agricultural programmes such as subsidies and agricultural land title certificates in contributing to emigration.
This chapter provides an overview of the key macro-level trends in the Philippines as well as an overview of the key departments and organisations managing employment and skills programmes. The Philippines recovered quickly following the global economic crisis. During the period between 2008-14, average GDP growth was 5.4%, outperforming both the OECD average and a number of ASEAN peers including Brunei Darussalam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. Responsibilities for labour market policies and vocational education and training are relatively decentralised in the Philippines. Local government units play an important role in linking people to jobs and developing training programmes with employers.