Chapter 2
Details about Japan’s ODA

Section 1. Measures for each of the Priority Issues

1. Assistance for the Poverty Countermeasures and Social Development Sector

(1) Basic education

As Japan regarded human resources development as a foundation for nation building, assistance for basic education is an area in which Japan can utilize its experience in education. Japan has been making concrete efforts in this area of cooperation with the concerned organizations, primarily the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

Japan is strengthening its cooperation in the area of basic education based on the Basic Education for Growth Initiative (BEGIN), which was announced in 2002. The BEGIN states three priority areas for Japan’s assistance in primary education: (1) ensuring “access” to education; (2) improving “quality” of education; and (3) improving “management” of education.

Concerning “access” to education, Japan is contributing to improvement of children’s access to education and educational environment through construction and refurbishment of educational facilities and provision of study materials, etc. for primary and secondary education. The main form of this cooperation is grant aid. Specifically, in fiscal year 2002, approximately 550,000 children worldwide—300,000 in Asia and 230,000 in Africa—benefited from school construction, distribution of study materials, and provision of classroom equipment by Japan.

With regard to improving the “quality” of education, Japan is supporting scientific and mathematical education and improvements of school management capacity. Judging from Japan’s experience in education, the benefits of education, including science and mathematics, depend especially on the capacity of teachers, therefore, Japan is placing priority on teacher training, improving teaching methods, and developing study materials. Japan’s support for these areas including scientific and mathematical education has been developed actively since the 1990s and it has become one of the characteristics of Japan’s support. For example, since 1998, through the “Strengthening of Mathematics and Science in Secondary Education (SMASSE)” Project, Japan has been providing training at central and regional levels for incumbent teachers in nine out of the seventy-one provinces in Kenya. This project has been recognized in the field of education as a project aiming at a shift from “teacher centered to student focused classroom practice,” and has also been praised by the Government of Kenya, which has set a goal of achieving industrialization by 2020, as a project which is contributing to the human resources development that is essential for industrialization. These experiences and results in Kenya attracted the attention of neighboring African countries and by the initiative of the Kenyan Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, a network for scientific and mathematical education was launched in June 2002 among educational administrators in 13 African countries. Moreover teachers are contributing to improving the quality of education in developing countries throughout the world by utilizing their own experience. For example, through the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV) “Participation system for incumbent teachers” was established in fiscal year 2001, 63 incumbent teachers were dispatched to developing countries in fiscal year 2002 and an additional 56 incumbent teachers are going to be dispatched in fiscal year 2003.

Along with support for improvements to “quality,” improvements of “management” is one area where Japan can utilize its own education experience to contribute to development of education in developing countries, and Japan is providing support for the formulation of education policies and education plans and for improvements of education administration systems. For Malawi, Japan implemented the “National Regional Education Support Plan Formulation Study” for two years from 2000, carried out school mapping, studies and analyses of educational conditions, and used all this information to formulate educational development plans on a per-province basis. Through these development studies, a wide group of people including local communities as well as people involved in education in Malawi, participated in the planning process to realize these plans and these measures are expected to develop throughout the country.

With goals to maintain and expand cooperation in these sectors and to undertake measures in sectors with little experience of assistance, Japan, primarily through MEXT, is working to develop domestic institutions such as the “cooperation bases system,” ^*1 etc.

The launching of the “cooperation bases system” was incorporated in the final report of Committee for International Cooperation in Education submitted in July 2002 by then Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Atsuko Toyama, and the system is planned to be inaugurated in fiscal year 2003.

Among these three priority sectors, the support for “access” to education, which is focused on school construction, accounts for approximately over 70% of the entire budget in support for the basic education sector in Japan. Currently, developing countries are facing a wide range of needs in the primary education sector, including the need to overcome the shortage of teachers, teacher capacity development, curriculum improvement, HIV/AIDS education, etc. How to expand support in these “soft” sectors is the future issue. When doing so, Japan believes that promoting not only the involvement of the administrative side but also the participation of children’s parents and the community is an essential element for realizing the benefits of assistance in a more sustainable and effective manner.

(2) Health

In many developing countries, many people are still suffering because they are unable to receive the basic health and medical services that can be easily accessed in developed countries. There are three goals in the health field related to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, and combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other infectious diseases. Importance is placed on these three goals related to poverty reduction. Japan provides assistance in the health sector, which places priority on the issues of infectious diseases, mother and child health, and the development of the health system.

Infectious diseases are not only a health issue posing a threat to the lives of individuals in developing countries, but also they are currently becoming a major factor hindering the economic and social development of these countries. In this regard, Japan announced the Okinawa Infectious Diseases Initiative (IDI) at the G8 Kyushu-Okinawa Summit in July 2000 and has been taking comprehensive measures to combat infectious diseases under this initiative. Refer to the following link to the section on Japan’s responses to global issues for an explanation on Japan’s efforts to combat infectious diseases (Infectious Diseases).

Together with developing measures to combat infectious disease and health systems, Japan supports mother and child health as the priority issue in the health sector because it is women and children who are most vulnerable in poverty. Japan is mainly providing assistance for children’s health, maternal health and reproductive health². Support for reproductive health is also an important approach in responding to the population issue, one of the global issues. In addition to direct cooperation in population and family planning efforts, Japan has been taking a comprehensive approach to indirect cooperation like health and medical care, basic education for girls, and Women in Development (WID)/gender, etc.

With respect to support for children, Japan is supporting the provision of vaccines, because diseases such as polio, measles, tetanus, etc. which can be fatal to infants can often be prevented through relatively inexpensive interventions such as vaccinations, etc. Concerning polio, which has serious sequelae, Japan is actively working towards polio eradication through polio immunization activities, in cooperation with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO). In fiscal year 2002 Japan provided support for “The Project for the Eradication of Poliomyelitis” (provision of polio vaccines) in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh; “The Project for the Construction of the Facilities for Measles Vaccine Production” in Viet Nam; “The Project for Infectious Disease Prevention for Children” (provision of polio and measles vaccines) in Afghanistan, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Nigeria, and other projects.

Column 1

Introduction of Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Handbooks in Indonesia

Despite the recent downward trend in maternal mortality and infant mortality ratios in Indonesia, they remained high with 226 maternal deaths (per 100,000 births) and 42 infant deaths (per 1,000 births) in 2002. (Three maternal deaths per 100,000 births and 9 infant deaths per 1,000 births in the case of Japan.) In order to ensure safe delivery and healthy growth of children, it is essential to enhance maternal and child health services. In addition, improving maternal health and reducing child mortality are incorporated in the MDGs. Japan carried out the “Project for Community-Based Family Planning and Maternal and Child Health” through JICA from 1989 to 1994, established central Java as a model region, and put most of its efforts into improving the quality of health and sanitation for pregnant women and infants and strengthening services to support the improvement. Under this project, an official from the Health Service Bureau in Java (an Indonesian doctor) visited Japan as a JICA trainee and what attracted his attention were the MCH handbooks. He thought that disseminating the MCH handbooks, which were being utilized so effectively in Japan, within Indonesia would help mothers and their newborn babies to live a safe and healthy life and decided to develop the “Maternal and Child Health Handbook in Indonesia.” The MCH handbooks written and distributed on a trial basis in Central Java became widely popular and so the handbooks were distributed throughout Indonesia. In response to these developments in Indonesia, in 1998 Japan commenced the “Ensuring the Quality of MCH Services through MCH Handbook Project” (until 2003) with the goal of improving maternal and child health services through MCH handbook activities. Currently health handbooks have spread to 26 of the more than 30 provinces in Indonesia and to date, approximately 2.22 million health handbooks have been distributed through the Ministry of Health of Indonesia. All kinds of efforts are being made to create the handbooks. For example, the covers of the handbooks vary from province to province, taking into account the culture and custom of each region. For the contents of the handbooks, difficult medical jargon is avoided as much as possible and a lot of pictures are used instead so that illiterate mothers can also understand them easily. As a result, the handbooks have gained a good reputation. Moreover, the Minister of Health in Indonesia is going to make a declaration encouraging pregnant women to use the health handbooks (planned for 2004) and international organizations and other donor countries carrying out development assistance are also supporting the costs of printing the handbooks. In this way, Japan’s assistance utilizing its own experience and knowledge is highly appreciated both within and outside Indonesia. In Indonesia, the steady efforts of many Japanese experts and JOCV in cooperation with local Indonesians made it possible to disseminate the MCH handbooks to many parts of the country. Japan will continue its support to help Indonesians to continue to distribute the MCH handbooks on their own and improve the situation in the maternal and child health sector. Monitoring and explanation of a MCH handbook by a Japanese Expert (West Sumatra) Pregnant women holding MCH handbooks while they wait for an antenatal inspection at a clinic (North Sulawesi)

Concerning reducing the maternal mortality ratio, Japan has provided steady assistance based on reproductive health needs. This assistance includes the project in Indonesia to disseminate mother and child handbooks applying Japan’s experience in mother and child health, to develop capacity building of midwives and nurses in mother and child health services, and the promotion of family planning and sex education. However, in order to directly reduce the maternal mortality ratio, it is necessary to provide appropriate medical care services, including emergency obstetric care systems. Reducing the maternal mortality ratio is the most difficult of the three MDGs in the health sector to achieve. For this reason, internationally there is a movement, led by UNICEF, to concentrate its assistance on the development of emergency obstetric care services. Taking this movement into account, Japan is providing assistance in this sector in collaboration with UNICEF, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF, an international NGO). In fiscal year 2002, Japan implemented the “Reproductive Health Project” (strengthening of health administration for maternal care) in Viet Nam, the “Project for Human Resources Development in Reproductive Health” (human resources development in the mother and child health sector) in Bangladesh, the “Strengthening Reproductive Health Education” project (human resources development, development of audio-visual education, development of statistical data) in Tunisia, the “Project for Support to Strengthening of Emergency Obstetric Care Service” (provision of medical equipment) in Bangladesh, the “Projet d’amelioration des soins de sant maternelle en milieu rural” (construction of obstetrics-related facilities, provision of medical apparatus and instruments) in Morocco, and other projects. Japan has contributed ¥4.9 billion to UNFPA and ¥1.9 billion to the IPPF respectively to prevent HIV/AIDS and to support reproductive health programs.

Measures in the infectious diseases and mother and child health sector will not achieve sufficient results if an appropriate health and medical care system is not put in place for the entire country. In the international community, direct measures to combat diseases, for example policies to combat HIV/AIDS are focused upon, while Japan stresses that the establishment of a primary health care system in a developing country plays an extremely important role in in addition to the direct interventions to combat diseases. Therefore, Japan is supporting the strengthening of community health, medical care and prevention activities and the development and reform of nationwide health systems—the development of adequate health and medical care systems in developing countries, the capacity building of the personnel in health and medical care, and the development of health and medical care related infrastructure—from the perspective of “primary health care”—the perspective of providing basic health and medical care services equally to a greater number of people.

In fiscal year 2002, in addition to dispatching experts to Pakistan for the strengthening of health administration, Japan supported health projects such as the “Strengthening District Health Services Project in Morogoro State” (strengthening the managerial capacity of the health administration at the state level) in Tanzania, the “Project for the Development of Human Resources in Health” (increasing the quantity and improving the quality of education for health workers and medical practitioners) in Senegal, and the “Lusaka District Primary Health Care Project” (establishment of a primary health care project management institution run by citizens’ organizations and health center employees) in Zambia.

Concerning assistance in the health sector, which is closely related to the poverty reduction, Japan promotes collaboration with a wide range of international partners, starting from political dialogue, planning through to implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

Concerning collaboration with NGOs, MOFA and health-related Japanese NGOs hold informal consultations on a regular basis to exchange views and information, and MOFA commissions NGOs to conduct surveys and studies that contribute to the implementation of assistance.

Concerning relations with UNICEF, since the beginning of the 1990s Japan has been cooperating with it to eradicate polio but in recent years Japan has widened its cooperation with UNICEF to include sectors such as vaccinations for children’s infectious diseases such as measles, tetanus, etc., provision of drugs to treat malaria and mosquito nets, and the provision of safe water.

In relations with the United States (US), the “United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-Japan Partnership for Global Health” was announced in June 2002 and cooperation to improve the level of health and medical care in developing countries is being advanced by Japan together with USAID. They are cooperating on Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) activities (voluntary HIV counseling and medical tests) in Kenya, HIV prevention activities, etc. in the border areas of Tanzania, and other projects throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America. JICA and USAID are also carrying out personnel exchanges.

(3) Women in Development (WID)/ Gender

Of the people living in poverty in the world, approximately 70% are women.³ In a variety of respects many women are placed in disadvantageous positions. In order to realize balanced and sustainable development, it is necessary to strive for the balanced participation of men and women in development and the distribution of the benefits derived from development, so it is important to make considerations for WID and gender equality.

In implementing ODA, Japan has been giving consideration to achieving women’s empowerment and gender equality encompassing all stages of women’s lives, and actively provided support with a focus on women’s education, health, economic and social participation, in line with the “Japanese Initiative on Women In Development (WID)” announced in 1995. Many projects related to WID are technical cooperation projects such as the dispatch of experts and the acceptance of trainees, and small-scale grant aid projects rooted in regions through NGOs. Disbursements in fiscal year 2002 were approximately 11% of total disbursements for technical cooperation, and approximately 25% of total disbursements for grassroots human security grant aid. And as more importance is being placed on consideration for gender in development in recent years, the Government of Japan will make efforts not only WID, but all ODA projects are making further considerations of social aspects including the perspective of gender equality.

Major efforts in this area include the following. In the reconstruction assistance package Japan announced at the International Conference on Reconstruction Assistance to Afghanistan in January 2002, one of the priority areas was “the advancement of the status of women and their participation in nation-building” and importance was placed on the participation of women in the post-conflict peace process. In Afghanistan women’s freedom was extremely limited under the Taliban regime, years of war and conflict produced many refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), and many men died in the conflict resulting in many widows and orphans, and the aging of society. All of this has made women’s lives extremely difficult. So for these reasons too, women have an essential role to play in reconstruction. Japan held the “Advisory Council on Assistance to Women in Afghanistan,” hosted by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda, beginning in February 2002, and the Council compiled the proposal entitled “Japanese Assistance to Women in Afghanistan” in May. This proposal included basic concepts, strategies, and description of possible projects, to advance Japan’s support for women. Taking into account this proposal, Japan is actively supporting women in Afghanistan through a number of projects, such as dispatching experts on gender to the Ministry of Women’s Affairs of Afghanistan, accepting trainees from the ministry, rehabilitation schools for girls, constructing women’s community centers through NGOs, and supports for refugee and internally displaced women (vocational and skills training, a wide range of seminars, income creation projects) through the Trust Fund for Human Security.

Japan is also actively cooperating to support women in Cambodia where the civil war of many years finally came to an end in 1991. Since 1996 Japan has dispatched experts on several occasions to the Ministry of Women’s and Veterans’ Affairs of Cambodia. In future too, Japan will continue to dispatch experts and provide equipment so that gender-related policies will be formulated by the Ministry of Women’s and Veterans’ Affairs based on accurate gender related information and statistical analyses both within and outside Cambodia and these policies can be implemented effectively, including by the women’s affairs bureaus of local governments.⁴

As one specific case study where Japan’s assistance led to a promotion of the ownership of the developing country, beginning in 1999 Japan dispatched experts to the Government of Indonesia as policy advisors on WID and gender mainstreaming. One of the activities of these experts was to cooperate in the development of gender statistics. As a result, JICA and the State Ministry for Women’s Empowerment of Indonesia itself cooperated to compile provincial gender statistical profiles⁵ for approximately 30 provinces and distributed from 500 to 1,000 copies of these profiles to each province.

And seminars concerning the gender statistics were held in 12 provinces with the participation of 80–100 people per province with the total number of participants exceeding 1,000 people. The State Ministry for Women’s Empowerment is aware of the importance of the gender statistics and after the JICA support, it carried out budget allocations and personnel deployments to independently publish gender statistical profiles. Some district governments have also published their own gender statistics.

In addition, in fiscal year 2002, Japan conducted the Evaluation Study on the “WID/Gender Policy—Evaluation of Initiative on WID” in collaboration with outside experts. The evaluation report extracted the outcomes and issues in measures taken so far under the Initiative on WID and has made proposals to improve the future planning and implementation of WID/gender policies. Placing continued importance on the perspective of gender equality, and aiming for fair and effective development cooperation, the Government of Japan will make further efforts through ODA activities towards improving the status of women.

(4) Water and Sanitation

Global concern about how to resolve water issues has been rising against a background of serious issues involving water such as water shortages, water pollution, flood damage, etc. occurring throughout the world due to the rapid increase in population, concentration of the population in cities, industrialization, and other factors. Currently one half of the world’s population is placed in an unsanitary water environment and some 6,000 children are dying every day from diseases caused by unsanitary water ⁶. On top of this, there is some fear that the water of the world, including that in developed countries, will fall into a state of crisis due to the impact of global warming, the threat of chemical substances, etc.

Japan has a wide range of purposes in its economic cooperation in the water and sanitation sector and it is implementing cooperation tailored to the diverse needs of developing countries. In the Third World Water Forum held in March 2003, Japan announced the “Initiative for Japan’s ODA on Water” as its major policy for comprehensive contribution to the water sector and is focusing on the following salient measures under the initiative:

Japan is also taking specific actions in this sector through international partnerships such as Japan-US cooperation, Japan-France cooperation, etc.

Japan’s cooperation in the water sector is implemented with priority on the drinking water and sanitation sector for which goals were established in the MDGs and Plan of Implementation at the Johannesburg Summit. Japan provides a large amount of cooperation in this sector compared to other donors in the world. According to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development-Development Assistance Committee (OECD-DAC) statistics, over the past three years (1999–2001) Japan has been the world’s largest donor among the bilateral donors and international institutions on the drinking water and sanitation sector, providing approximately $1 billion, one-third of the average (approximately $3 billion) of the total ODA financial flow.

Commitments in fiscal year 2002 in the water and sanitation sector, including both grant aid and loan aid, totaled ¥226.9 billion. This assistance was provided for the following purposes: drinking water and sanitation, flood control, irrigation, energy (hydroelectric power), and others (water pollution monitoring, afforestation, etc.)

Looking at Japan’s disbursements to the water and sanitation sector in fiscal year 2002 by purpose, drinking water and sanitation occupied approximately 70% of the total and forest planting, etc. came to approximately 20%.

Looking at how the different types of financial assistance were typically used, approximately 70% of grant aid was provided for the construction of wells and other water supply facilities and the remainder was used for irrigation, flood control measures, forest planting, prevention of arsenic contamination of underground water supplies, etc. On the other hand, approximately 70% of loan aid was provided for water supply and sewerage systems to improve the environment of the drinking water and sanitation conditions in urban areas, approximately 20% was provided for afforestation to prevent desertification, and the remainder was used for flood control in urban areas.

Looking at commitments by region, nearly all loan aid went to Asia. Asia also received over 50% of grant aid, followed by Africa with more than 20%.

As an example of financial and technical cooperation, in Bangladesh well water is contaminated by arsenic in the ground, 60 million people—approximately 50% of the entire population of the country—were being affected by drinking water containing levels of arsenic exceeding WHO standards, and there were more than 10,000 suffering from chronic arsenic poisoning. For this reason, through the “The Project for Mitigation of Arsenic Contamination,” in cooperation with UNICEF, Japan is providing the grant aid necessary to disseminate information and knowledge concerning arsenic to the people, carry out surveys of arsenic levels in wells, ensure alternative water sources, and identify and treat patients. In Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam’s largest city, most of the land area of the city is low-lying at just two to three meters above sea level while drainage facilities are inadequate. Consequently flood damage occurs frequently, especially in the rainy season, and to make matters worse, canals and drainage ditches are severely polluted by discharged and untreated sewage. For this reason, through the “Ho Chi Minh City Water Environment Improvement Project,” Japan is to provide loan aid to strengthen drainage capacity in the central areas of the city, to prevent and alleviate flood damage, and to improve the urban environment and sanitation in the lives of people by collecting sewage, developing treatment facilities and improving water quality in canals. Furthermore, in Senegal water supply facilities have been developed through grant aid over more than 20 years. In order to appropriately maintain and manage these facilities, a system for raising awareness of water supply facility maintenance and management methods has been developed at some plants which were selected from 109 points. There Japan is implementing technical cooperation through the “Projet Eau Potable et Appui aux Activités Communautaires,” with the objective of establishing operation system water management committee by local residents.

A vehicle water station where people can get water directly from horse-drawn carriages (Senegal)

2. Refer to Part I for details.
3. UNDP, Human Development Report 1995 (Gender and human development)
4. Beginning in April 2003 Japan has been implementing the “Gender Mainstreaming and Policy through Upgrading Information and Research Capacity” (technical cooperation project)
5. These profiles presented statistics and indexes in sectors such as population, education, health, family, economic activities, etc. and attempted to clarify gender issues in each province.
6. Framework for Action on Water and Sanitation (August 2002), UN Water, Energy, Health, Agriculture and Biodiversity (WEHAB) Working Group