The Philippines is set to secure approval for a $400-million (over ₱23-billion) World Bank loan by the middle of next year to help agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) improve their livelihoods. A project information document (PID) disclosed on Oct. 14 showed that the Washington-based multilateral lender’s board is scheduled to greenlight its investment project financing (IPF) for the Inclusive Partnerships for Agrarian Reform Communities (IPARC) initiative on June 15, 2026. To be implemented by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), the project aims to “increase ARBs’ access to agricultural assets or support services and agricultural income,” the document said. A separate World Bank environmental and social review summary (ESRS) said the IPARC project “operationalizes the priorities of the government of the Philippines by improving and modernizing support services, supporting the creation of cluster farms and linking them to ARB organizations (ARBOs) to achieve economies of scale in agricultural production, and promoting the creation of agri-businesses and market linkages.” The World Bank explained that ARBOs are “registered farmers’ organizations composed of a majority of ARBs either within or outside agrarian reform communities (ARCs).” “ARBOs are the primary vehicles by which the DAR and other agencies deliver support services, including inputs, rural infrastructure (farm-to-market roads, bridges, and irrigation), credit lines, capacity-building, and support for small enterprises,” it noted. The forthcoming World Bank IPF would cover the bulk of the total project cost of $468.1 million, while the Philippine government will shell out counterpart funding worth $68.1 million. As customary, the Department of Finance (DOF) shall borrow on behalf of the government. According to the PID, the new DAR project complements the ongoing Support to Parcelization of Lands for Individual Titling (SPLIT) Project—funded by a $370-million World Bank loan approved in 2020 and recently extended until 2027. SPLIT supports the subdivision of collective certificates of land ownership awards (CLOAs), or titles issued to ARBs, across 15 regions. The World Bank said that as of July 2025, about 163,176 individual land titles—or 22 percent of the target area—had been issued under SPLIT, which aims to distribute 750,000 titles covering 1.3 million hectares (ha) by 2027. However, gaps in providing support services to ARBs have prompted the DAR to request additional World Bank financing to expand the project to the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) and launch a new phase focused on such services, it added. As such, the proposed IPARC project aims to help ARBs maximize the benefits of land ownership by improving productivity, market access, and institutional support. The World Bank said this builds on the SPLIT Project’s success and represents the next phase of its partnership with the DAR, focusing on support services and economic empowerment. IPARC will feature four key components: providing integrated support services and farm clustering; developing local infrastructure such as irrigation and storage facilities; modernizing the DAR’s digital systems for efficiency and transparency; and strengthening project management and monitoring. The project seeks to boost ARB competitiveness, expand agribusiness opportunities, and ensure stronger coordination across government programs, the World Bank said. As earlier reported by Manila Bulletin, the World Bank Group (WBG) plans to extend up to $23 billion in loans and financing to the Philippines from mid-2025 to mid-2031, coinciding with the lender’s fiscal years (FY) 2026 to 2031, as the country moves toward upper-middle-income country (UMIC) status. Under the new six-year country partnership framework (CPF), the Philippines is expected to borrow about $7.85 billion from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD)—the WBG’s lending arm for developing nations—over the next two years. Once the Philippines achieves UMIC classification, it will gradually lose access to concessional interest rates on official development assistance (ODA) loans from multilateral institutions such as the WBG, the Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), as well as bilateral partners like Japan and South Korea. Last week, Manila Bulletin also reported that the Philippines ranked as the WBG’s fifth-largest developing-country borrower in FY 2025, with total loans amounting to $2.855 billion—its seventh-highest globally when including the world’s poorest countries. Among IBRD clients, the Philippines’ total loans were exceeded only by Brazil ($3.856 billion), Türkiye ($3.791 billion), Argentina ($3.73 billion), and Ukraine ($3.142 billion). When the WBG ’s International Development Association (IDA) borrowers are included, Nigeria ($3.145 billion) and Bangladesh ($3.049 billion) also surpassed the Philippines. IDA lends to underdeveloped nations, In FY 2024, the Philippines was also the fifth-biggest IBRD borrower, with $2.35 billion in loans, and seventh overall among WBG clients—behind Ukraine, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Türkiye, Indonesia, and India. During FY 2023, which coincided with the first full year of the Marcos Jr. administration, the country borrowed $2.336 billion from the WBG. The Philippines was the WBG’s No. 1 borrower in FY 2021, at the height of the most stringent Covid-19 lockdowns, with eight loans totaling $3.068 billion—mostly used for pandemic response. By FY 2022, under the final year of the Duterte administration, the country’s WBG borrowings dropped to $1.578 billion.