By Ace June Rell S. Perez

THE drafting and development of the report on a prequel of the Philippine Development Report (PDR) on jobs dubbed as Mindanao Jobs Report (MJR) led by World Bank (WB) in partnership with Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) and Mindanao Development Authority (Minda) will be off the press by July of next year.

MJR is a comprehensive package study that will summarize existing analytical work and undertake research on job creation in the Mindanao.

“The World Bank decided that we should focus on Mindanao because we cannot develop fully the Philippines if Mindanao lags far behind. We want create more jobs and better jobs because through it people will feel that they are part of growth if they have better jobs. Inclusive growth, as the end goal of the government and private sector should basically boil down to growth that creates more and better jobs thus reduces poverty,” said Karl Kendrick Chua, MJR team leader and Senior Country Economist of WB Philippines during the Joint Enabling Secretariat (JES)-Inclusive Business in Mindanao (IBIM) Committee Meeting on Friday at the Seda Abreeza Hotel, Davao City.

He added that MJR is needed because PDR has no regional analysis, which is essential because Mindanao has unique development challenges requiring “more nuanced recommendations.”

In the committee hearing, representatives and executives from various public and private entities were present to discuss issues and challenges stating the real condition of the island.

Based on WB’s presentation investors consistently cite conflict, power, logistics and corruption as constraining investment which will results to less and slow job creation.

WB country manager, Motoo Konishi for his part said that the study will give a clearer vision on where Mindanao will go.

“The study will design to give a clearer vision for Mindanao and will somehow guide the next administration on what to put focus on the island especially in budget allocation because it is very important to manage and plan well where to invest,” he said.

“This amount is just an estimate but we see some additional P350 billion budget annually for Mindanao and this should be coming from national and local government ant the private sector. We are not saying that we can achieve this immediately, it will be in a gradual approach maybe after six years,” Chua said.

The study started January of this year.

Source: SunStar Davao