Additional value of Japan’s Aid

7th December 2010

Kimiaki Jin
Japan International Cooperation Agency
JICA UK Office
 Aspects of Japanese ODA that
consistently draw comment:

1) a relatively underdeveloped field presence;

2) a limited capacity to engage in ongoing multilevel
policy dialog at the country level;
3) low coherence in overall ODA policy direction and
implementation due to bureaucratic factors;
4) difficulty in meeting actual recipient needs in
technical cooperation.
(Arase, 2005)
 OECD-DAC ODA Peer Review (2009)

Progress: New JICA, program based approach, Africa.

To continue:
– measuring outputs towards measuring outcomes,
– clear strategy for promoting political debate with stakeholders,
– internal business process in both JICA and MOFA,
– following up on evaluation findings,
– making full use of NGO capacities.

Challenges:
1) securing a sustainable increase in the ODA budget,
2) increasing predictability in annual budgeting system,
3) preoccupation with visibility of distinct Japanese activities,
4) earmarked funds in multilateral organization
 History of international
development assistance in SSA

Prof. Machiko Nissanke, SOAS argued;

• In the last three decades, the path of economic development was
shaped by policies dictated by the IFIs and the donor community.
• SAPs (in response to the debt crisis in the early 1980s) as a
condition for debt relief dictated by IMF has not accomplished
structural transformation of economies.
• The heavy commodity dependence remain a major link with the
global economy – SSA remained aid-dependent after three
decades.
• The shift from ex-ante policy conditionality to ex-post, selectivity
based policy conditionality has not changed the unproductive aid
relationships with the traditional donors;
• The unfortunate delay in reinstating the critical importance of
infrastructure investment for African development – donor-
dominated agenda setting.
(Nissanke, TICAD Seminar 2010)
 Aid effectiveness
• One major factor of aid effectiveness is the reflection that
development aid in the past has not produced sufficient
outcomes.
• This has been attributed to two reasons; (1) too many projects
with poor coordination or no coordination among them;
• and (2) one-way imposition of conditionalities as part of structure
adjustment programs.

Paris Declaration
– Ownership: Developing countries set their own strategies for
poverty reduction, improve their institutions and tackle
corruption.
– Alignment: Donor countries align behind these objectives
and use local systems.
– Harmonization: Donor countries coordinate, simplify
procedures and share information to avoid duplication.
– Managing for Result: Developing countries and donors shift
focus to development results and results get measured.
– Mutual Accountability: Donors and partners are
accountable for development results.
(Source: OECD website)
 Ownership and Partnership

• Shaping the 21st Century (DCA 1996), an epoch-making policy

paper published by the OECD-DAC in 1996. ... The policy paper
emphasized ownership and partnership as the key concepts for
new thinking about ODA. ...

• Japanese officials thought that the concept of ownership was

affirmation of its own idea of support for self-help, which was
heralded in its 1992 ODA charter, and partnership was literally
assistance provided in the manner of respecting self-help efforts.

• Western donors perceived these two concepts very differently.

They thought partnership meant deeper involvement in the
domestic affairs of recipient countries for the purpose of
promoting development, poverty reduction and perhaps even
democratization. Ownership, in their vocabulary, meant the
recipients’ commitment to implement what was acknowledged by
partners (i.e. donors).
(Takanashi 2010)
 Weak points of current discussion
on aid effectiveness

1. Ownership & conditionality based approach

2. Over focus on modality, such as budget support, information

sharing and division of labor, and less focus on capacity
issues and actual constraints on the ground

3. Increasing presence of non-ODA development cooperation

outside of the current framework of aid effectiveness
arguments, such as them provided by China, India and
private charity funds.
 Diversity and Complimentarity

– Each developing countries is unique. The donor community

is also a heterogeneous group. Development efforts should
take advantage of these differences instead of suppressing
all development strategies and aid instruments into one.

– There are many paths and options to reach that goal.

– Economic growth is absolutely necessary for sustained

poverty reduction and avoidance of permanent aid
dependency. But the global ODA community seems at a
loss as to what concrete measures are required to
generate long-term growth, especially in Sub-Sahara Africa
(Ohno, K)
(GRIPS 2008)
 Infrastructure Construction Experiences
in East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa;
(Lessons learned from 27 projects)
• It is not easy to find significant regional differences as far as the
accomplishment of individual infrastructure projects is concerned.

• Remarkable difference between the two regions is found in

(i) the sustainability of infrastructure services, and
(ii) the evolution of infrastructure from a single project to a
complex being composed of mutually related projects

• Long-term commitment by the recipient country as well as donors

is vital. Political will of the recipient country is indispensable for
the pursuit of a long-term mission of development and poverty
reduction.

• While the international trend of shifting away from specific project

has its own merit, this paper concerns that the dominance of
program aid hinders effective evolution of functional infrastructure
networks, which is crucial to development and poverty reduction.
(Shimomura 2008)
 Technical cooperation as
JICA’s deeper pocket?
• If any significant change might be expressed in favor of Africa,
it may come from the dynamics of the new JICA and its
bureaucratic memory of old JICA but with deeper pocket.
(Lumumba-Kasongo 2010, p241)

• The concept of Japan’s development cooperation is

characterized by knowledge sharing in order to create local
knowledge (Sawamura, 2004).

• Mobilizing local resources –human and physical – through

participatory and transparent methods is crucial to securing
sustainability and scalability in development projects.

• Equitable growth in connection with both economic growth

and human centered development.
 Synergy between
Growth, Capacity Development and
Knowledge Creation
• Recent global development agenda swings back to growth
orientation. Loan scheme is suitable for large scale economic
infrastructure development. Agriculture is another major issue of
growth orientation.

• Japan remains engaged in capacity development of local

administration and communities while major Western donors
have shifted to policy orientation and budgetary support and
have left community development to NGOs.

• Based on respect for “self-help”, less conditional approach, not

on the assumption that donors have correct knowledge, but
based on local knowledge creation like wakon-yosai [Japanese
spirit, western knowledge] in Japan’s modernization process.
 Bibliography
1. Arase, D. (ed.) (2005) Japan’s Foreign Aid, Old continuities and new directions, Oxon;
Routledge
2. GRIPS Development Forum (2008) GRIPS Development Forum Report; Diversity and
Complementarity in Development Aid, Tokyo, GRIPS,
http://www.grips.ac.jp/forum-e/D&CinDA.htm
3. Lehman, H. (ed.) Japan and Africa; Globalization and foreign aid in the 21st century, Oxon;
Routledge
4. Lumumba-Kasongo, T. (2010) Japan-Africa Relations, New York, Palgrave Macmillan
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Initiative: What is new Japanese Economic Assistance to Africa?”
http://www.jica.go.jp/uk/english/office/topics/topics101007.html
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