Philippines seeks $200 million WB loan for fisheries

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture (DA) is seeking a $200-million loan from the World Bank to help boost the local fisheries sector.

Agriculture Secretary William Dar said the $200-million Fisheries and Coastal Resiliency project would directly contribute to achieving key outcomes in the country’s food security framework.

The project is also integral to the national goals of recovery and resiliency as the sector survives, reboots and grows amid the pandemic.

The loan, equivalent to P10 billion, would support the scaling-up and modernization of Philippine capture fisheries and aquaculture through the provision of technical support, capital, and enabling environment.

The FishCore project also aims to address structural weaknesses in the value chain to improve sustainability and resiliency of fishery resources, increase incomes of fisherfolk, and uplift the socio-economic condition of coastal communities amid the pandemic.

The proposed project will be implemented in selected sites among the 12 fisheries management areas (FMAs) established nationwide in 2019 to sustainably manage the country’s fishery resources through a science-based and participatory governance framework.

The FMAs include the country’s major fishing grounds, lakes, bays, gulfs and other areas that may be delineated for fishery resource management purposes, approximate stock boundaries, range, distribution and structure.

Dar said the World Bank favorably supports the DA’s proposed FishCore project.

In a letter to Dar, World Bank country director Achim Fock said they fully support the goals of the project to sustainably improve incomes of Filipino fisherfolk and support resilient coastal communities through enhanced ecosystem management, productivity- enhancing technologies, aquaculture, reduced post-harvest losses, value-chain infrastructure and related activities.

In a recent virtual meeting with World Bank officials, Dar requested that the processing of FishCore be accelerated to attain loan approval by middle of 2021.

The DA-Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources is tasked to submit the project feasibility study by November 2020, in time for its presentation to World Bank officials in June 2021.

The project has four components namely fisheries coastal areas resiliency planning, fisheries and coastal resilient resource management, modern and resilient livelihood investments, and project management and coordination.
Once the loan is approved, the DA-BFAR will implement the FishCore project in October 2021.