Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III and World Bank President David Malpass. Malacañang FILE PHOTO and AFP
MANILA, Philippines — The country’s top economic manager wants two of the world’s biggest multilateral lenders to work closer together to eliminate overlapping functions, reduce costs, and be more effective in promoting development among member nations.
In particular, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said the World Bank Group and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) should align their efforts toward coming up with a “coordinated country program” especially for smaller members.
“As governor of both institutions — the World Bank and ADB – I feel that there is a lot of room for reduction of overheads for both institutions at least in Asia.” he said during a meeting with newly appointed World Bank president David Malpass.
“Why do we have to get two economic reports from ADB and World Bank?” Dominguez said. “Maybe there’s a way to work together and to reduce overheads. I put myself in the place of a small country, why do I have to deal with two bureaucracies that do virtually the same thing?”
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Malpass has welcomed Dominguez’s proposal for multilateral lenders to closely coordinate their development efforts in the Asia-Pacific region, and said closer ties with ADB would be a good starting point.
The World Bank chief also encouraged Dominguez to come up with more proposals on how the bank, in particular, can perform better in helping the Philippines accelerate its sustainable growth.
