Japanese and U.S. development assistance to the Philippines : a Philippine perspective

Japanese and U.S. official development assistance (ODA) to the Philippines have played an important role in postwar Philippine development. Together, they account for 81.5 percent of the total development assistance flows from bilateral sources and nearly 40 percent of development assistance flows from both bilateral and multilateral sources during the period 1952-1986. Over the years, the volume, composition and direction of Japanese and U.S. ODA to the Philippines have been changing. In the future, the question is how these elements should evolve in order to maximize the contribution of the two countries' assistance to the achievement of Philippine development goals. This paper presents a Philippine perspective on Japanese and U.S. ODA to the Philippines. It does not attempt to quantify the contribution of such assistance to development, aware of the pitfalls and difficulty of impact assessment. Rather, it reviews the flows of Japanese and US assistance in terms of both quantity and quality arid indicates some possible directions regarding the future role of Japanese and U.S. development assistance to the Philippines. Section 2 provides a brief historical background of Japanese and U.S. ODA to the Philippines. Section 3 contains a comparative analysis of Japanese and U.S. ODA to the Philippines in terms of their size, composition, interest rate and term structure, sectoral allocation, procurement, and planning and programming, among others. Finally, .Section 4 discusses the future role of Japanese and U.S. assistance to the Philippines, highlighting a number of ways by which the contribution of such assistance to Philippine development can be enhanced.