The Philippines is the first country to sign the Rapid Response Option (RRO) agreement with the World Bank Group (WBG), placing it at the forefront of crisis and disaster response, the Department of Finance (DOF) said in a statement yesterday.
The agreement was signed between Finance Secretary Ralph Recto and WBG managing director Anna Bjerde last April 20 on the sidelines of the WBG and the International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings in Washington.
The RRO is part of the WBG’s Expanded Crisis Preparedness and Response Toolkit, which empowers client countries to deploy resources from their existing bank portfolio more effectively to deliver a swift response when crises occur.
Specifically, it allows countries in the event of an emergency to immediately access up to 10 percent of undisbursed and uncommitted balances in their portfolio with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development or International Development Association for response actions.
The flexible resource reallocation will provide the Philippine government with immediate liquidity to rapidly deliver critical services, such as healthcare, shelter and food in times of emergency.
“I honestly cannot think of a better client and country to sign the first RRO. It fits nicely into the program that we are supporting in the Philippines under your leadership. It is wonderful to see that just in February, we went to the Board with this crisis response toolkit to just in a few months be able to operationalize it with such an important partner and client,” Bjerde said.
“We greatly welcome the introduction of the Rapid Response Option, which significantly enhances our capacity to ensure economic security for the Filipino people. Through this, we can safeguard our hard-earned development progress, strengthen our resilience against shocks, and keep our development targets on track,” Recto said.
