WASHINGTON, March 12, 2026 - The World Bank's Board of Executive Directors has approved new financing to help the Philippines strengthen its fiscal resilience, attract higher-quality private investment, and equip its workforce with the skills needed for better and more productive jobs.
The new operation, the Philippines Growth and Jobs Development Policy Loan, focuses on reforms in three areas to achieve these goals: strengthening fiscal management through revenue and expenditure reforms; enhancing opportunities for private investment and innovation, by lowering the cost of doing business and promoting competition and investment; and building labor-force capabilities through reforms in skills, education, and innovation.
"The World Bank is proud to continue supporting the Philippines' priorities - turning strong growth into more and better-paying jobs. By strengthening fiscal foundations, improving the business climate, and investing in human capital, this effort will unlock private investment and equip people with the skills they need to find jobs and thrive," said Zafer Mustafaoğlu, World Bank Division Director for the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei. "The result: quality investments, higher productivity, and real pathways to better livelihoods, especially for young people and women."
This US$800 million operation is a Development Policy Loan (DPL), a policy-based budget support that the World Bank provides to finance the country's program of policy and institutional reforms. Policy areas supported are:
- Fiscal management: Measures that strengthen domestic resource mobilization and improve the efficiency of public spending to safeguard space for priority investments in infrastructure and human capital.
- Business-enabling environment: Streamlining regulations and reducing compliance costs for firms; promoting competition; and advancing policies that encourage private participation and foreign direct investment in key sectors - creating the conditions for businesses to grow, invest, and generate better-paying jobs.
- Skills and human capital: Reforms that improve learning outcomes and workforce skills, starting from early childhood, through to basic education quality, and finally, technical and vocational education and training (TVET) upgrading, and innovation ecosystem strengthening, so that workers can access better jobs and firms can find the talent they need to expand.
"These reforms aim to crowd in private investment, create more and better jobs, and drive the Philippine economy toward more sophisticated, higher-value activities," said Jaffar Al‑Rikabi, World Bank Senior Economist.
This support comes as the Philippines' gross national income (GNI) per capita has reached the threshold of upper-middle income countries, on the back of inclusive GDP growth since 2010 that has enabled the economy to double in size every 13.5 years. Yet, the country today faces domestic and external shocks that underscore the value of ongoing fiscal and structural reforms, to reach higher, more job-rich growth, and to reduce vulnerability to shocks.
The reform program is being implemented by a broad set of agencies, including the Department of Education, the Department of Finance, the Department of the Interior and Local Government, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, among others.
The new DPL complements World Bank investments and advisory work in connectivity, agriculture modernization, digital infrastructure, and financial sector development, alongside the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) engagements to mobilize private capital.
