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Japan:
The do-gooder that tried too hard
By James Borton
Previously:
Japanese aid brings dividends, division
For the past decade, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and other institutions,
such as the International Finance Corp, and Japan's overseas development
assistance (ODA) programs led by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation
(JBIC) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) have acted as
catalysts for the private sector by supporting the process for both capacity
and confidence building, and providing necessary financial resources.
"Cambodia has come a long way in the last decade. Key reforms are being
introduced and the foundations of a market-based economy are being put in
place," says Urooj Malik, ADB country director for Cambodia.
Many may recall that it was the Japanese who made the controversial decision to
resume assistance to Cambodia only a month after the explosive and bloody July
5, 1997, coup staged by Hun Sen. At a donor conference in Paris in early July,
Japan had pledged almost $70 million in aid to the Cambodian government in
fiscal year 1997, plus $1 million in demining assistance, marking its role as
Cambodia's leading aid donor. Despite intense global political pressure that
Cambodia meet demands for reform and restoration of fundamental human rights,
Japan failed to back down from its aid pledge.
In fact, Japan has taken the high road on many occasions in facing off with the
United States in its ODA programs in Myanmar, in its repeated efforts to bring
the ruling junta out of isolation. Japan's present financial-aid and
technical-assistance commitments in Myanmar are all the more disquieting to the
US State Department in the wake of the recent arrest of pro-democracy leader
Aung San Suu Kyi.
While governments and the private sector remain accountable for much of the
Greater Mekong Subregion's (GMS) development, the Japanese government
recognizes that non-government organizations (NGOs) play a very constructive
role in these developing countries. NGOs, both environmental and
social-advocacy groups, have been critical of several GMS Program initiatives -
specifically dam, power, transportation and navigation projects that they say
have been undertaken with little consultation with local villagers.
The paradox is that some of these spurious hydropower development programs in
Laos and Vietnam resulted from the recommendations of expensive studies paid
for by JICA contracts awarded to Nippon Koei, one of the world's leading
engineering consultancy firms.
There is increasing dissatisfaction among the frustrated Japanese public and
NGOs in Japan that the country must bear some of the responsibility in the
exploitation and destruction of environments along the Mekong that many
communities have depended upon for their livelihoods in the name of sustainable
development.
Mekong Watch, a Japanese NGO, established in 1993 in Tokyo regularly chronicles
the negative environmental and social impacts of aid supported development in
the Mekong.
Some of the glaring sensitive issues cited include: The Vietnamese government's
application for a loan from Japan for a dam expected to relocate almost 4,500
people; the merits of 23 planned dams in Laos, 13 involving direct Japanese
aid; and even Japan's grant to a hydropower plant repair project in Myanmar,
whose military have reputedly violated human rights of many villagers through
forced labor and rape.
These aid projects are fueling even more strident sentiment as the Japanese
economy's self-sustained growth seems frustratingly elusive and the only big
spender left in Japan is the government.
Takashi Nakamura, a senior JBIC representative in Washington, DC, says "the
Japanese taxpayer is engaged in a more open and critical dialogue with the
government about its overseas funding commitments and select projects".
With this transparent approach to aid management, and with a need to restore
the public's trust in its government, it is not surprising that Japan expects
by early fall to issue a new ODA charter.
Under the newly proposed ODA charter, some inside Japanese grant-aid
authorities anticipate that the country's support for NGOs involved in
international cooperation may falter. Previously, under the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, Japan provided subsidies for NGOs in Southeast Asia. Many of those
programs funded included a focus on global issues - environment, population,
AIDS, food, health care, and women in development. JICA provides the necessary
funds the training of local personnel in the area of public works.
"JICA has been implementing programs that promote partnering with NGOs to
conduct technical assistance with local communities and grassroots
organizations and was first inaugurated in Indonesia in 1999," says Dr Sarah
Maxim, a consultant and program director for non-profits in Jakarta.
With Japan's restructuring of its ODA charter this fall, this kind of model for
direct assistance to local poor villages may be partly eclipsed as part of the
painful cost-cutting.
This is happening despite ADB president Tadao Chino's reaffirming the important
role that NGOs play. The bank has even made a small provision to NGOs to
provide regional technical assistance in the form of a new $500,000 grant.
"NGO suggestions have helped to improve the quality of projects, and in some
instances to address certain side effects. We increasingly collaborate with
NGOs in the design and implementation of loan and technical assistance
activities in the GMS. For example, we fund the training of Cambodian NGOs so
that they can assist village development committees in community-based natural
resource management in the Tonle Sap inland wetlands," says Chino.
Nevertheless, ODA cuts continue. Although the newly proposed charter is not
released, more adjustments are expected. ODA decreased by 3 percent for the
fiscal year ending March 2002 and for 2003, there was almost an additional 10
percent decrease in funding. Japan financial analysts view this ODA balance
sheet adjustment as a band-aid approach to improve the dire and sinking state
of the Japanese state budget after more than 10 years of economic stagnation.
A senior Japanese aid official believes that even though there is pressure to
analyze the overall ODA program, it nevertheless remains a key cornerstone of
their current foreign policy and for combating global poverty.
With Japan's chronic inabilities to implement change and make tough decisions
related to restoring confidence, there's little chance that civil society in
Japan, international NGOs, and even the villages in the Mekong region, will
allow buzz words such as "sustainable development", "transparency" and
"accountability" not to resonate daily in the vocabulary of decision-makers.
How this translates for Japan's public and for Southeast Asia's poor remains
unanswered.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact
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