The National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) believes there is no need to amend the 25-year old Official Development Assistance (ODA) Act as the legislation remains “responsive” to the country’s needs.
In a Ways and Means Committee Hearing at the House of Representatives on Monday, Neda OIC-Undersecretary for Investment Programming Jonathan L. Uy said if there were adjustments that needed to be made, the ODA Act still allowed the government some flexibility.
Uy recounted an “equipment and assets improvement” project for the Department of Health (DOH) being funded by the World Bank. The project was reformatted to become Heal Covid-19, which included vaccination procurement.
“On the part of Neda, there is no need to amend the law at this point in particular in response to Congresswoman [Sharon] Garin’s question. The existing process actually has already been able to be responsive and flexible with regard to changing the nature of the approved projects,” Uy said.
Uy said provisions in the ODA Act have allowed the Neda to reformat the project quickly. The DOH project is funded by a $150-million loan from the Washington-based lender.
On average, Uy said, the Investment Coordination Committee (ICC) process takes about three to four months. However, if the submissions to the ICC are complete and are compliant with the ICC guidelines, it could take only a month to approve projects.
Based on his presentation, Uy said, the Neda Secretariat project appraisal usually takes four to six weeks; the ICC Technical Board endorsement and ICC Cabinet Committee approval together take one to two months; and the Neda Board confirmation of the ICC approval takes a month.
The ICC is one of seven inter-agency committees of the Neda Board. The ICC evaluates major national projects and recommends the timetable of the project implementation; advises the President on domestic and foreign borrowings; and submits a status of the major national projects.
Paris Declaration
Neda stressed that 90 percent of the country’s ODA loans and grants are untied and compliant with the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness Principle 8.
Under Principle 8, countries must push for their own country systems in untying aid. Tied aid is common among bilateral loans and grants where donors automatically have the right to appoint a contractor for a certain project.
“The preference for ODA for our priority projects should be untied in terms of source, international and local. At this point, bulk of our funding, or meaning to say considering both bilateral and multilateral, about 90 percent of all of our ODA are coming from multilateral and bilateral sources with untied [terms],” Uy said.
The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, drafted in 2000, aims to improve the use of ODA and make it more responsive to the world’s development needs.
The 12 indicators of the Paris Declaration are on Partners having operational development strategies; Building reliable country systems; aligning aid flows with national priorities; and strengthening capacity by coordinated support.
Other indicators were indicators on the use of country Public Financial Management Systems; use of Country Procurement Systems; Avoiding parallel implementation structures (PIUs); the predictability of Aid; and untying aid.
The last batch of indicators include indicators on using common arrangements or procedures; joint country missions; joint country analytical work; quality of country performance assessment framework; and the availability of mechanisms for mutual assessment of progress.