28Kiyoshi Yamaya (Professor of Doshisha University, President of the Japan Evaluation Society)When evaluation reports including “evaluation from diplomatic viewpoints” accumulate, it can help nurture people and organizations.Muraoka: MOFA is striving to enhance “evaluation from diplomatic viewpoints” by presenting specific evaluation questions. Professor Yamaya served as a chairperson at the expert review meeting on the survey of the trial results towards the enhancement of “evaluation from diplomatic viewpoints” in FY 2017. In response to these results, the ODA Evaluation Division revised the ODA Evaluation Guidelines (11th Ed.). However, we continue to experiment due to issues such as difficulty in proving the cause-and-effect connection between ODA outcomes and diplomacy.Miyamori: Is there any other country commissioning “evaluation from diplomatic viewpoints” to a third party?Prof. Yamaya: I don’t think there is. It’s an organizational issue when the ODA Evaluation Division, which is under Minister’s Secretariat, instead of the department taking charge of all foreign policies, must evaluate from the diplomatic perspectives. Nevertheless, you have done it so far. In my opinion, it cannot be more remarkable to have the number of evaluation reports including evaluation from diplomatic viewpoints, increase more and more. It will certainly be quite an advantage for MOFA once these reports get accumulated. Even if personnel change, successors will be able to understand easily, which will contribute to the continuation of diplomacy.Miyamori: Are there any other Japanese ministries commissioning policy evaluation to a third party?Prof. Yamaya: No. There is no other. In that sense, third-party ODA evaluation is quite unique, and that is also its strength. Other ministries have to conduct self-evaluation since it is stipulated by the law, and it is difficult to accumulate expertise for evaluation. On the contrary, MOFA’s ODA evaluation uses a considerable amount of external expertise, and also a specialist is appointed as a director of the ODA evaluation division. That contributes too much higher-level, high-quality reports. When you line up all evaluation reports, they sure become an asset.Muraoka: It is important to be rational when we line them up. When evaluating from diplomatic viewpoints, sources of information are picked through trial and error. We have been putting a little more serious effort for the past few years, and it seems to be that we have stepped up to the next stage from where we started when we were just trying to put together something representable.Prof. Yamaya: You are indeed entering the next stage. The reports can be used for educating researchers and scholars, as well as fostering consultants. The quality of evaluation will improve if there are many of such consultants. MOFA is developing human resources in that respect.Muraoka: There are also challenges in rating when evaluating ODA.Prof. Yamaya: Japanese society is very sensitive toward the word, “evaluation” written in Japanese, and they tend to misunderstand it or get offended by it, although that won't be a problem if written in English. I think everyone has a hard time dealing with that.Muraoka: We hope to achieve a persuasive evaluation, including ratings from multiple perspectives while adhering to the principle of ensuring the independence of evaluators who make value judgments.
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