Development cooperation
The Philippines, an important partner
Germany decided as early as 1961 to make the Philippines one of its development partners. Nowadays, Germany is the fourth largest bilateral donor of the Philippines after Japan, the USA and Australia.
The number of official development experts in the Philippines has steadily grown over the past decades to reach around 90 today. In addition to that number, a large number of German Non-Governmental Organizations are represented with projects all over the Philippine islands.
Facts and links
Development cooperation between the Philippines and Germany began in 1961 and has generated 881 million Euro (Php 54 billion) in total assistance to date. From 2009 -2014 fresh commitments reached 39 million Euro (Php 2 billion), complemented with about 90 expatriate experts deployed in various programs nationwide.
Traditionally, German official development assistance (ODA) had four main pillars:
Sustainable Economic Development
Environment
Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution in Mindanao
Decentralisation as a so-called cross-cutting issue
In recent years, emphasis was particularly on the development of the Caraga Region in Mindanao and on the effects of climate change in the Philippines.
Furthermore, the Philippines benefit from important regional programs financed by German ODA such as the support of the BIMP-EAGA (Brunei Darussalam Indonesia Malaysia the Philippines - East Asean Growth Area) or the (CDIA) Cities Development Initiatives Alliance for Asia.
In addition, the Philippines receive substantial German development assistance through multilateral channels such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the European Union (EU) as well as a broad range of United Nations Agencies.
The most important implementing agencies for the bilateral German-Philippine development cooperation are the GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit) and the German Development Bank KfW (Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau). About 20 German NGOs, the churches and political foundations affiliated with major political parties in Germany are also carrying out various development projects.
