EU urges govt actions vs climate change

MANILA, Philippines—The European Union and some international funding agencies have urged local governments to strengthen alliances to avert the damaging impact of climate change and the global financial crisis on local communities.

Europe’s Ambassador to the Philippines Alistair MacDonald said local governments in the Philippines and many parts of the world are facing these challenges amid the lingering problems of shrinking budgetary allocation and limited governance capacity.

“The global recession is likely to affect government’s delivery of basic services to the local communities,” said MacDonald in a keynote address during the opening of the two-day 2nd Inter-Local Government Units (LGUs) Summit.

He stressed that “new global challenges such as adaptation to climate change and the over-expanding population will bring pressure to the local government units.”

The EU official said stronger alliances among the LGUs in the Philippines could help local communities gain better access to services. He said the LGUs could together pour scarce resources to address common concerns on health, economic development, and environment.

Interior Undersecretary Austere Panadero said the global financial crisis is currently taking its toll on cities, particularly in loss of jobs in the manufacturing sector.

He said the Philippines was able to avoid a full-blown recession due to the government’s strong investments on infrastructure and not on private investments.

“Key sectors are slowing down particularly in the manufacturing sector. Regions 3 (Central Luzon), 4A (Southern Tagalog), and the National Capital Region have experienced significant drop in the manufacturing sector because most of the workers are here and also, there has been some slowing down in business receipts,” said Panadero during a press briefing during the forum.

He stressed that LGU alliances have produced a variety of experiences with different levels of success.

“It is now time to extract from these experiences useful facts that can help replicate good practices in many groups of LGUs wishing to start an alliance,” said Panadero.

Health, environment, tourism, and agri-business sectors are the most crucial sectors that needed alliances for LGUs.

The interior and local government official said the challenges of the global economic turmoil should serve as “sparkplugs” for alliance building to achieve local economic development in the country. –INQUIRER.net