An official from the United States Agency for International Development (Usaid) will visit the Philippines from November 5 to 8 to help launch several new development projects in cooperation in the country.

The United States Embassy in Manila said that it will be hosted with Eric Postel, assistant administrator for Usaid’s Bureau of Economic Growth, Education and Environment, who will visit the Philippines on November 5 to 8.

During his visit, Postel will meet with high-level Philippine government officials, business chambers and other stakeholders to discuss the US-Philippines Partnership for Growth (PFG) initiative, which was launched in November 2011 by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario.

“The PFG provides a new framework for deepening and strengthening bilateral engagement to promote broad-based and inclusive economic growth,” the embassy said.

“The program is intended to mobilize the resources of both countries to address the most serious constraints to economic growth in the Philippines,” the embassy added.

Postel is slated to launch a new partnership between Usaid and the city of Valenzuela that will implement the use of mobile money in the city’s financial transactions under the Scaling Innovations in Mobile Money Project.

The project will help “cut administrative costs, increase transparency, reduce potential leakage, and make transacting with government easier for citizens.”

These objectives also support Usaid Forward, an initiative which focuses on innovation and the application of technology to achieve high-impact development.