Ancien régime of Japan’s foreign aid policy: Main characteristics of Japan’s aid administration system before its reforms

Nikitina, Larisa and Furuoka, Fumitaka (2008): Ancien régime of Japan’s foreign aid policy: Main characteristics of Japan’s aid administration system before its reforms.

Abstract

In Japan, the aid administration system was very complicated. Although there were more than ten government agencies involved in Japan’s ODA program, the aid administration had been dominated by three ministries and one agency – the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), the Ministry of Finance (MOF), the Ministry of International Trade and Industries (MITI) and the Economic Planning Agency (EPA) before the organisational structural reforms took place in 2001. On the other hand, under the ancien régime of Japan’s aid policy, there were three main aid-implementing institutions in Japan. The oldest is Japan’s Export-Import Bank (Eximbank). It played a prominent part in Japan’s economic co-operation during the 1950s. The second institution is the Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA), which is mainly in charge of technical co-operation projects. The Overseas Economic Co-operation Fund (OECF) provides bilateral loans to developing countries. This paper made an attempt to identify the main characteristics of Japanese aid administrative system before the aid administrative reforms. This is mainly because the ancien régime had strongly influenced and had shaped the forty-years of Japanese aid giving history before the bureaucratic restructuring took place. Nevertheless, despite the recent changes the basic problems of Japanese aid giving-mechanism, such as inter-ministerial conflicts and rivalries, remain same as before.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: foreign aid, administration, Japan
• Subjects: F - International Economics > F3 - International Finance > F35 - Foreign Aid

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