Identification and Formulation of a National Support Project on Green Economic Recovery through an integrated circular economy approach for the Philippines

Objectives Aligned with the Philippine National Development Plan (PNDP) and the global dimension of the European Green Deal, the Delegation of the EU (EUD) to the Philippines has identified circular economy and plastic waste management as one of the key sectors of its new Multi Annual Indicative Programme 2021 - 2027 (MIP). In this context, this assignment is intended to support the identification and formulation of an Action that supports the Philippines' transition towards a circular economy for plastics (the 'Action'). For this purpose, the experts identified priority areas in the Philippines for financial support. Specific projects have been pre-identified to be supported by this 50 MEUR envelope with a pipeline of environment investment projects in the field of plastic waste management and recovery through energy production and recycling. Specific objectives: The specific objective of this project was to identify and formulate a national support project steered by private sector and supervised by Government implementing Circular Economy approaches for improved plastic waste management with jobs creation, environment safeguard and climate change response co-benefits. The Action is foreseen to be flanking a Team Europe Initiative (TEI), combining forces and synergies between the EU and EU Member States active in these sectors in the Philippines, and to consider the Philippines' strategic development orientations as well as experiences of past and on-going initiatives to promote synergies with other development programmes. It seeks to support the acceleration and transitioning of the Philippines to a more circular, resilient and climate friendly economy and shall address the core green economy principles of circularity and sustainable use of resources that are expected to eventually lead to private sector growth, job creation, plastic pollution reduction and climate change mitigation. The formulated intervention will do this by three avenues: (I) by tackling the widespread, inefficient plastic economy and dysfunctional waste management with a measurable reduction of plastic waste and marine litter, while generating co-benefits (Specific Objective 1); (ii) by supporting selected local government units, at city/municipality level and clusters thereof, to transform from managers of waste to drivers of a circular economy transition and innovation, in collaboration with the private sector through a pipeline of environmental investment projects (Specific Objective 2); and (iii) by enabling the involvement of the private sector in the innovation and investment of waste reduction solution as well as the operationalisation of a circular plastics economy (Specific Objective 3). This project included also technical advice to the PPP Center and other agencies in the Philippines in charge of the policies/incentives system to prepare both the pipeline for PPPs/JVs and for green/sustainability bond, to encourage DFIs that are interested in financing those to apply for further support of additional use of EU blending instruments.