City gets P160 million aid from UK

CEBU, Philippines — The Cebu City government has received a P160-million grant from the United Kingdom to help in the policy formulation and capability building to boost the city’s economic growth.

A memorandum of agreement was signed by Mayor Tomas Osmeña and British Ambassador Daniel Pruce in Makati City last Monday. Cebu City is among the 19 cities in the world chosen by the UK as beneficiaries of the Global Future Cities Programme, which will be implemented from May 2019 until 2022.

 “With this, we will be able to enhance the implementation of the BRT’s (Bus Rapid Transit) second phase, work on the vision for Call Center City and the BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) Single Mother’s Program, the Waste to Energy facility for garbage, a centralized data storage and command center, and many more programs, all at no cost to our taxpayers,” Osmeña said in his Facebook post yesterday.

Under the agreement, the money will be used to promote growth and prosperity in developing middle income countries.

The program scope includes transportation, urban planning, and resilience wherein sustainable developments will be implemented to alleviate the concerns revolving around these areas of concern.

The UK government will have three interventions for the 19 cities. These include development of city strategy; identification of a catalytic projects and project concepts; and establishment of a data hub in the city. In the Philippines, only two cities were chosen as beneficiaries –Cebu City and New Clark City.

City Administrator Nigel Paul Villarete said the Global Future Cities Programme for Cebu City will have planning and strategy intervention and catalytic project(s) intervention.

“Foremost in our list are the BRT Phase 2, 3 and next phases as well as the Call Center City concept, among others.  I think we can maximize the British assistance to cover as many as possible,” he told The FREEMAN.

Villarete, however, clarified that the assistance may not involve actual construction of projects but mainly project preparation, at no cost to government.

He said the assistance is very important as the city cannot undertake the project development works without the project preparation.

“The inclusion of Cebu City in the Prosperity Fund – Global Future Cities Programme of the British (UK) Government speaks loudly of London’s consideration of the city’s policy of consultative, participative, and inclusive governance, as well as our extensive engagement of the Civil Society as partners of in development,” he said.

Villarete said UK is very particular on civil society engagement in the selection process wherein Osmeña has been an advocate of the participation of civil society organizations (CSOs), non-government organizations (NGOs), and people’s organizations (POs) in the City Development Council (CDC).

“With the start of the 3-year program in May, we would expect and even greater participation of the civil society organizations in the CDC in the process.  We hope this will result to more inclusive growth which is a hallmark of the aspirations of the basic sectors,” he added. —  FPL (FREEMAN)