Trade and Poverty Issues: A Country Case Study of the Philippines

Abstract

This study begins with an overview of the poverty situation in the Philippines. It then takes a brief look at the poor in the rural areas, followed with a discussion of the poor in the informal sector. It then, brings these two sectors together, with an examination of the poor and the urban/rural and formal/informal divides. It concludes with a discussion of the relationship among trade, poverty and the structural transformation of the Philippine economy. Note: This working paper is circulated for discussion and comment purposes. This paper was written in response to a joint call for papers by the World Trade Organization and the World Bank. A detailed and comprehensive abstract, on which this paper is based, went through the screening process of a WTO/World Bank selection committee.

Using counting and participatory approaches in multidimensional poverty assessment: The case of upland farming households in the Philippines

“…In the Philippines, almost a quarter of the population is considered poor (Philippine Statistics Authority, 2019), and poverty is still predominantly a rural phenomenon (Sta Romana, 2017;World Bank, 2018). Among the basic sectors, the marginalized farmers remain the poorest with a reported poverty incidence of 38.3% according to the 2015 poverty estimate of the PSA (2017).…”