“Japaneseness” from the ODA
Charter 2015 – with a glance at UK
Kenneth King
Kenneth.King@ed.ac.uk
Edinburgh University & NORRAG
7th July 2015, ODI
Comparing aid discourses:
China, Japan & UK
• UK’s White Paper on International Development:
Eliminating World Poverty (1997) Total Refocusing
of UK aid policy on IDTs –not British aid
• China’s African Policy (2006) China’s Foreign Aid
(2011, 2014) – MDGs mainly for DAC. China= S-S
• Japan’s Official Development Assistance Charter
(2003) No mention of MDGs, only in early 2000s
• Japan’s Development Cooperation Charter (2015)
Minimal reference to the MDGs and none to OWG
Lenses from the ODA Charter 2015:
Cooperation & ‘Japan’s Strengths’
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Distinctive characteristics
Japan’s history & ODA impact
‘Soft power’ & ‘Japanese language’: a comparison
Expertise, experience & experts
Training & human resource development
Self-help & ownership
Japanese values
Occupational culture
Private sector involvement in ODA
Growth, infrastructure & poverty reduction
Education and human resource development in the Charter
- see full accompanying paper
Distinctive Characteristics of the ‘first
developed country in Asia’?
• Japan talks of people-to-people interaction being
the very ‘essence’ of its ODA, of people-centred
development, of reciprocal relations and learning
from each other
• But China actually uses ‘mutual’ much more than
Japan - mutual benefit, mutual trust, mutual
understanding, mutual respect. N.b. China is ‘the
largest developing country in the world’.
• UK’s mutuality is more about global
interdependence, with no reference to people to
people cooperation
History as Lens on Japaneseness
• ODA philosophy & Japan’s ‘long history’
• Values learned thru ‘post-war history’
• Not just poverty reduction, but growth that is
‘Inclusive’, ‘sustainable’ & ‘resilient’ in crises
• JICA RI book on 60 years of foreign aid, 1954-2014
• 50 years of JOCV, 1965-2015
• Top donor 1989 (compare China 1989); TICAD 1993
• Very different from China and its ‘unreplicable’
development history, 1950-2010 (Li Xiaoyun in ChinaDAC 2011) & the UK: ‘Our particular history places us
on the fulcrum of global influence’ (White Paper, 1997)
Japan’s ‘Soft Power’ including
‘the Japanese Language’
• New in ODA 2015, not in ODA revision 2003
• Note the Japan Soft Power Research Institute 2009
• 22 Centres of the Japan Foundation in 21 countries, culture,
language, & Japanese studies
• 10 Japan Centres (2000) in 9 countries, focus on business, language
and mutual understanding
• 10 TICAD HRD Centres proposed in Africa by 2017 (business?)
• Japan Information & Cultural Centres – US, UK, Iraq, Philippines,
Kenya, Peru, Uruguay etc How many?
• Lack of global scale and coherence compared with China, Germany,
UK, France, Russia?
• See $5 million to Columbia U for Japanese politics –first such grant
to US university in 40 years – versus 100 Confucius Institutes in USA
Language & culture promotion
organisations: A comparison
• Alliance Francaise (founded 1883) 1040
offices,136 countries
• British Council (founded 1934) 200+ offices in
100+ countries
• Goethe Institute (founded1951) 149 Institutes in
93 countries
• Confucius Institute (founded 2004) 470 CIs in 130
• Russkiy Mir (fnd. 2007) 83 centres in 42 countries
• Japan Foundation (fnd. 1972) just 22 centres in
21 countries, & 10 Japan Centres in 9 countries
The ‘X’ Factor in Japanese ODA:
Experts, Experience, Expertise
• ‘Experience, expertise and technology’,
‘experience, expertise and lessons learned’
• 136,000 Japanese experts dispatched in 60 years
of aid in projects, + hundreds of thousands in
study missions, feasibility & development studies.
• ‘Field-oriented approach’, sharing technologies
and Japanese values and occupational culture
• Claim by Japan Centres that ‘Japanese expertise:
now available worldwide’ (JICA, 2012)
‘The World’s Biggest Training
Programme’ –a/c JICA’s World 2011
• ‘HRD is an ultimate priority in the Japanese
development community’
• 538,000 participants, worldwide, 10,000 per
year for short-term training
• Unique role of the 15 domestic offices of JICA,
creating ‘Japan experts and Japanophiles’
• Training in 300+ programmes in 17 fields
• Philosophy of ‘wakon yosai’, ‘transmitting
Japan’s unique experiences’ & Japanese spirit
Japanese and Universal Values
• Universal: such as ‘freedom, democracy, respect
for basic human rights (HR) & rule of law’
• Japanese values as ‘distinctive characteristics’:
resilient, agile, proactive, sincere, reciprocal,
jointly creating, down to earth, steady,
responsible, even ‘spiritual affluence’
• China talks ‘friendship’; UK & Japan don’t
• UK & Japan talk democracy and HR; China doesnt
• ‘Occupational culture’: presumably, work
commitment, health & safety, 5S, kaizen
Self-help for them or for us?
• The ODA Charter (2003) is about Japan
supporting the self-help efforts of developing
countries (DCs).
• The same for the 2015 Devt. Coop. Charter
• China also claims to build the key self-devt.
capacity and self-reliance of DCs.
• But Japan’s own self-help history is clearly
implied if not made at all explicit (See Ampiah
et al.)
Hugely increased role
for the private sector along with ODA
• Much greater role for private sector in 2015
Charter than in 2003. Same for UK –see below
• Now private sector is seen as a ‘powerful engine
for economic growth’ for developing countries
• TICAD 2013 talks of joint public and private
• Opportunities for Japanese private companies
• ODA as a catalyst for private investment
• ODA promoting private-led, quality growth/ PPPs
• ‘At DFID, our relationship with business has never
been closer’ Greening 2nd July 2015, ODI
Infrastructure hard and soft;
Growth and Poverty Reduction
• Already in Japan’s ODA 2003, ‘social’ and
‘socioeconomic’ ‘infrastructure’ have a key place
in policy
• By 2015 Charter, a clear requirement for both
‘hard (physical)’ and ‘soft (non-physical) basic
infrastructure
• Poverty reduction only possible via sustainable,
inclusive and resilient growth including
institutional development & private sector devt
• In UK, poverty reduction central. In China’s
African Policy – no mention of poverty and poor
The 2015 Charter & Education:
with a glance at China and UK
• Japan’s 2015: a) more about HRD than formal
educ. b) but HE as ‘intellectual foundations’ for
devt. coop c) TVET for economic growth d)
‘agility, expertise, knowledge, research capacity’
• See History of Japan’s Education- implications for
Developing countries – a remarkable approach
• UK’s Education Position Paper (DFID, 2013)
• China has no Education Aid Policy Paper, just a
few paragraphs in China’s Foreign Aid and China’s
African Policy
Aid with a Japanese Face?
• ‘Japan’s human resources, expertise, advanced technology’
seen as assets for developing countries.
• Aid with a Japanese face very visible in the multiple
photographs of Japanese experts, JOCVs, JICA staff, and
JICA president in the 2014 JICA Annual Report
• Unlike UK’s Into the 1990s with British experts on every
page, no British face in its Education Position Paper, partly
because of sector budget support. But see claim to be a
‘global leader’ in rigorous education research
• No reference to Kaizen in 2015 Charter, despite it being
‘one of the areas of Japan’s greatest competency’ (JICA
Annual Report)
• ‘Triangular cooperation’ continues Japan’s engagement
Followups
For article on ‘China's Higher Education Engagement with Africa’ (Oct. 2014), see:
http://poldev.revues.org/1765
•
For the book, China’s Aid & Soft Power, see James Currey Publishers, published
16 May
2013:http://www.jamescurrey.com/store/viewItem.asp?idProduct=14171
For Japan’s aid at 60 years of ODA & JICA, see forthcoming book.
• http://www.jica.go.jp/english/publications/reports/annual/2014/index.html
•
For emails: Kenneth.King@ed.ac.uk & Pravina.King@gmail.com
•
Read NORRAG News and join NORRAG http://www.norrag.org/en/register.html
Next Issue, NORRAG News 52 (July 2015): Financing education and skills
•
Last contrast: Japan has 78 NORRAG members, China has 86, UK has 457!