High hopes with
new admin – UN

Voters are not the only ones who are optimistic that the 2010 elections will usher in a new administration that would definitively address poverty and the inequalities in society. Even United Nations (UN) resident coordinator Dr. Jacqueline Badcock, who heads the UN Country Team, is hopeful that the new government will focus on the inequalities that exist in development.

Badcock is referring to the country’s reported economic growth, which, she says, has not been enough to lift the poor out of poverty and has largely excluded them from participating in the economy. During the recent launch of the “Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2010,” Badcock stressed the need for the incoming administration to balance macroeconomic policies with social development policies.

from left: George Manzano (UNESCAP), Dr. Jacqueline Badcock (UN resident coordinator), Dennis Arroyo (NEDA), and Dr. Edsel Beja Jr. (Ateneo de Manila University)

The survey, which has the theme, “Sustaining Dynamism and Recovery for Inclusive Development,” is an annual publication of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP). The 2010 survey reviews the impact of the global financial crisis on the economic performance and social development of economies in Asia and the Pacific.

The crisis that hit Asia, according to UN ESCAP economic affairs officer George Manzano, “has been a trade story…due mainly to the contraction of exports.” The report has thus made economists in the region contemplate whether it is wise “to put everything in the export basket,” adds Manzano, referring to the experience of Southeast Asia, which “narrowly averted the recession in 2009.”

As a sub-region, Manzano explains, Southeast Asia has been the least affected by the crisis. However, individual economies in the region have been affected by the crisis in different ways.Trade-dependent economies like Thailand, for instance, were left reeling from its impact while those with a large domestic demand — such as Indonesia and the Philippines – were the least affected.

“The factor that prevented our development for the past years protected us from the crisis,” comments Dr. Josef Yap with a hint of irony. Yap is president of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS).

The way National Economic and Development Authority director Dennis Arroyo sees it though, the Philippine economy “never contracted during the global recession” because of the Economic Resiliency Plan (ERP) that the government has been implementing since 2009. The ERP puts emphasis on “creating jobs quickly” and on creating “low tech jobs” as part of its Comprehensive Livelihood and Emergency Employment Program, as well as on protecting export workers and overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

“The job creation programs did work” as evidenced by the “fall in unemployment during the heat of the crisis,” explains Arroyo. “In fact, we were hit harder by the 2008 food and fuel crisis,” he adds.

On the government’s plans for skilled workers and professionals, Arroyo says they can be “absorbed by the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry,” which he identifies among the growth drivers for 2010, along with mining and quarrying, retail trade, and government services.

When sought for comment on the government’s plan to keep the country’s health professionals and teachers from leaving the country, Arroyo says, “They’re free to leave the country,” especially when there are better opportunities abroad. “In fact,” he adds, “we already have a surplus of nurses.”

Manzano, for his part, says there are “continuing wide development gaps in the region,” and clarifies that the growth in gross domestic product (GDP) displayed by other countries was “not enough to reduce poverty.” The report thus urges governments in the region to increase social spending “to spur a fairer, more balanced, and sustained economic recovery” over the long term.

Badcock hopes that this recommendation, along with others put forward in the survey, would be “reviewed and contemplated by the Philippine government,” especially as they relate to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which the UN is advocating.