Bangkok, Thailand – The Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF) Acting Deputy Executive Director and LGU Operations Service (LGUOS) Director Ricardo L. Bobis, Jr. shared his insights on the Philippines’ experience on financing resilient infrastructure at the World Bank’s workshop entitled “Making Thai Cities Resilient and Attractive for Investment while Unlocking their Potential for Livability and Sustainability”, on 08 to 10 March 2023, at the Kamolthip I, The Sukosol Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand.  

Director Bobis, Jr. was joined by the Philippine contingent, namely, OIC Regional Director Erwina Grace P. Morales – BLGF Regional Office CAR, and Ms Mary Jean Ramos – City Planning Development Officer of Bacolod City.  

In the said workshop, Director Bobis, Jr. underscored the impact of the fiscal position of local governments responding to disaster risk mitigation.  

“Local governments must recognize that their fiscal position makes a huge difference in the quality and speed of resiliency measures and in disaster risk mitigation, and [lastly], it is important for the Local governments to keep its local revenue sources buoyant, and its capital infrastructure programs able to adopt resiliency factors to attract investments that will unlock its potentials for livability and sustainability in the near future”, Director Bobis, Jr. said.  

The workshop brought together the Thailand cities of Bangkok, Khon Kaen, Chiang Mai, Phuket, Rayong, and Nakhon Sawan, and delegations from the Philippines, Vietnam, and Japan to strengthen municipalities’ institutional capacity in framing investments based on resilience trends and opportunities for leveraging carbon finance and understand planning and financing for resilience and how to use data and analytics to shift from sectoral to spatial solutions.