Japan as Top Donor: The Challenge of Implementing Software Aid Policy

Fifty years of capacity building: Taking stock and moving research forward1

“…Whether entirely new (e.g., national planning commissions) or expansions of pre‐existing organizations (e.g., universities), these organizations were to be increasingly managed by locals as part of the effort to replace colonial era administrators. Most aid in the 1940s and 1950s involved providing “hardware” like physical infrastructure and equipment; to complement this hardware aid (and to allow newly independent countries to run their new hardware) came “software aid”, defined as assistance for developing personnel (later called human resources) and organizations (Fujisaki et al., 1996). This institution building was delivered through training, professional advice, and design and testing of innovative programs within the receiving countries (Goldsmith, 1992), but also through twinning programs, which sent personnel from developing countries to be trained in analogous organizations in donor countries.…”

Japan-Africa Relations

“…The general mainstream views stipulate that "the quality of foreign aid can be measured by indicators such as the grant share in the total amount, grant elements, trying status, effectiveness and efficiency in aid administration, implementation, and evaluation" (Fujisaki et al 1996(Fujisaki et al -1997). In addition to these views, this author argues that the well-meaning intentions of the actors involved, their judgments or the quality of assessment about how to use their power, and above all in-depth knowledge of the donors' expectations and assumptions are important in determining factors in the study of international relations.…”

Japan’s Official Development Assistance: Recent Issues and Future Directions

“…In fact, the share of Japanese firms in the procurements of ODArelated contracts has been declining in recent years, in part reflecting their increasingly higher cost structure. Fujisaki et al (1996-97), for example, report that the share of contracts given to Japanese firms in ODA loan projects declined from nearly 70 percent in the 1980s to 27 percent in 1994. Table 6 shows that the share declined to a mere 19 percent in 1999 (and 24 percent in 2000) while fluctuating in the rest of the 1 990s. '…”

“…In 1999, the share of economic infrastructure in Japan's bilateral ODA was 32 percent, compared with 13 percent for the United States and 12 percent for the United Kingdom (Table 8). Given the lack of adequate human resources to implement assistance in soft areas, large-scale physical projects-funded predominantly by loans-have been favored by the Japanese bureaucracies as a means of disbursing ODA quickly (Fujisaki et al 1996-97). Correspondingly, the share of social development, such as the environment, poverty reduction, education, health and nutrition, has been limited in Japanese bilateral ODA.…”