Japan's aid cutback puzzles poor

By Hisashi Uno

OSAKA, Japan (JP): Japan's fiscal 2001 draft budget has been released for final review, and it is now certain that Japan will go ahead with another cutback in official development assistance (ODA). This not only has caused embarrassment to many internationally-minded Japanese but eventually will be of serious concern to recipient countries as well.

The cutback is confusing to the developing world as a whole. How do Japanese leaders wish to have their country stand out in international cooperation?

The policymakers of the three-party ruling coalition, spearheaded by Policy Research Board chairman Shizuka Kamei of the Liberal-Democratic Party, proposed in November that Japan's ODA be cut 30 percent in the fiscal year beginning April, because of the Japan's critical financial condition and its tight money policy.

Under growing pressure from the international community, and in particular from United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, decision makers settled for a 3 percent reduction.

Japan's ODA was first released in 1954 and has been the largest in the world for the past nine years. The latest statistics released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reveal that ODA was $9,358 million in 1997 and at $10,640 million in 1998.

However the ODA outlay in Japan's national budget underwent a 10 percent-plus cut in fiscal year 1998 and its budgetary allocation for 2000 declined by 2.18 percent from the previous year.

In the fiscal 2001 budget, the 3 percent cut in ODA amounts to 31.4 billion yen or the equivalent of $285.5 million. It would fall very close to a quarter of the amount Indonesia or China received from Japan in 1998. Japan provides almost 64 percent of the foreign development aid received by Indonesia.

Last July, when world leaders met for the Group of 8 Summit in Okinawa and Kyushu, they devoted one-third of their final communique to development issues and to the significance of international cooperation.

Half the world's population of 6 billion people today live in absolute poverty and have to survive on $2 each day. Of these, 1.2 billion are unable to spend more than $1 a day.

Under these circumstances, the United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty was launched in 1997 for global observance. Another reduction in Japan's ODA runs counter to popular expectations for a growing Japanese role in the 21st century.

When the government's ODA overview was adopted in 1992, top priority was placed on efforts to tackle poverty and respond to the need for human development in the recipient countries. The government also stressed that Japan would neither increase its defense expenditure nor develop weapons of mass destruction, and went on to declare that it would seek better global understanding of its peace diplomacy.

It would be easy, although possibly dangerous to attempt, if Japan ever claimed to be the world's foremost donor country because its disbursements are the largest worldwide.

The critics will bear in mind that the UN General Assembly earlier called on all industrialized countries to allocate at least 0.7 percent of their gross national product (GNP) to development assistance.

Only four donor countries have so far answered this call. Aid from Denmark, which surpassed the 1.0 percent mark some years ago, now stands at 0.99 percent. Norway is second at 0.91 percent, followed by the Netherlands at 0.80 percent.

Japan's ODA, however, accounts for only 0.28 percent of its GNP, or merely a quarter of its defense outlay.

Another popular yardstick assesses ODA in terms of per capita averages. Japan's average, for example, exceeded $100 in 1994, but has now declined to $82 per head, falling far short of the averages of major European donors.

The Danes contribute $316 per person and the Norwegians $309. People in Luxembourg contribute $242 per person, followed by the Dutch at $192 and the Swedes at $189 per person.

Japanese parliamentary policymakers in the ruling parties and the opposition should know that the overall amounts are not so influential but that the other yardsticks are more internationally accepted.

By these standards Japan lags far behind.

In a national public opinion survey by the Prime Minister's Office in November last year, only 2.4 percent of the respondents wanted to have Japan's ODA suspended and another 21.7 percent expressed negative views or even supported a reduction.

Meanwhile, 29.2 percent of those responding wanted to have the amount increased and 42.4 percent wished to maintain the current level of disbursement. This clearly indicates that more than seven in every 10 Japanese citizens are in favor of positive participation in ODA-based international development cooperation.

Japan's ODA monitoring system inaugurated last year invites private citizens to visit Japanese-financed development projects overseas and to see firsthand how the assistance actually upgrades the living standards of the people in those recipient countries.

A Foreign Ministry source says that this system functions pretty well and that candid opinions expressed will identify the problems and help further improve the quality of Japan's ODA.

The ruling coalition supports the release of 32,000 billion yen or $290 billion to manage the banks and other financial organizations that have gone bankrupt as a result of the collapse of Japan's bubble economy, and to salvage their creditors.

It is unthinkable therefore that Japan finds it too difficult to allocate $10,000 million to $13,000 million a year to help alleviate poverty in the less fortunate countries. Knowing Japan is seeking a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, the whole world is keeping watch on how Japan is prepared to play its given role in international cooperation.

The government and the people of Japan must take a more realistic view of their position and consider more seriously how they can better serve the interests of humanity as a major power of the international community.

A senior UN official for more than 20 years until 1993, the writer is a professor of social development in Asia and the Pacific at Kansai University of International Studies, near Kobe, Japan. He served as director of the UN Information Center in Jakarta from 1985 to 1990.