By UNFPA (United Nations Fund for Population Activities) estimates, the world's population will reach 5.85 billion in 1997, and balloon to 8.04 billion by the year 2025. Though the population growth rate has been declining for some years now, the UNFPA attributes that slowdown not only to such factors as the spreading acceptance of family planning and other population policies, but also to warfare and the AIDS epidemic. In fact, more than 1.6 million individuals died of AIDS in 1996 alone. Of that total, 470,000 were women, and another 350,000 were children under the age of 5 (most of whom received the infection from their mothers).

In February 1994, Japan announced its Global Issues Initiative (GII) on Population and AIDS, a program aimed at providing around $3 billion in aid over the seven years to FY 2000. Since then, it has been engaged in a variety of assistance projects in these fields, several coordinated with the U.S., as well as the UNFPA and other multilateral institutions. Over the three fiscal years from 1994 through 1996, Japan finished sending project formulation missions to all of the twelve priority countries. Through such efforts, GII-related projects Japan implemented during the three fiscal years reached around $2 billion, a figure representing two-thirds of the seven-year target set out under the GII.

Many children in the developing world still die from diseases that are either no longer common in the advanced industrial world, or that can now be effectively treated and cured. These include certain infectious diseases that are preventable through vaccinations. Japan over the years has been involved in various forms of assistance designed to help children, ranging from the construction and furnishing of schools, classrooms, and pediatrics clinics to funding for WHO- and UNICEF-led programs for the vaccination of children. In the effort to eradicate polio, Japan has assigned aid priority to the West Pacific (a WHO-administered zone), with special emphasis on East Asia, a region that has, consequently, made stunning progress in virtually eliminating polio. At the ninth UNCTAD conference in April 1996, Japan announced plans to extend its aid efforts in this field to Africa.

Children's health was one of the aid fields that is accorded importance under the Common Agenda in FY 1994. To date, Japan and the U.S. have been working together closely and concentrating their efforts on assistance for the eradication of polio. Currently plans are being put together for studies concerning assistance aimed at addressing iodine-deficiency syndrome and other trace-nutrient-related disorders.

Japan faces a range of hurdles in its efforts to improve the quality of aid. One task will be that of strengthening its aid implementing capabilities. Such efforts will be necessary to strengthen donors' roles in development to tackle global issues.

Second, scientific knowledge must be more utilized in the policy making process. To review the opinions of scientists and experts, and devise a system that allows their viewpoints to be better reflected in the official aid policy is important in the process of overcoming global issues.

A third important hurdle will be that of training human resources for assistance in these areas. Japan needs trained experts who are capable of working effectively in foreign countries

Expectant mothers attending a class backed by Japanese technical assistance. They are holding a pink handbook on maternal care distributed as part of a project for family planning and maternal and child health care. (Salatiga, Indonesia)

TOPICS: Instructing Village Women's Groups - Health Center in Kibirechia, Kenya