혁신적 개발협력 수단으로서의 일본 해외투융자 사업에 대한 고찰

Abstract

The paper aims to explore how the so-called ‘innovative development finance’ emerged as a key agenda for the successful fulfilment of Sustainable Development Goals. In doing so, the study focuses on how such an agenda has been locally institutionalised and promoted as part of traditional donors’ geoeconomic and geopolitical strategies. Via a case study of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)’s Private Sector Investment Fund (PSIF), the paper investigates how the resumption of PSIF was largely conditioned and driven by Japan’s new growth strategy that reiterated the effective use of ODA 1) as a catalyst for mobilising and leveraging bankable investments in developing countries, 2) to fend off fierce competition from China over infrastructure lending in Asia. Subsequently, Japan’s geoeconomic strategy further rendered its ODA more susceptible to instrumentalisation and financialised. In terms of implementing PSIF, JICA has been facing ample challenges in ensuring both Japan’s national interests and developing countries’ development needs equally – hence, careful balancing between them seems arduous. Such difficulties lie in actually formulating projects in developing countries via PSIF that 1) are bankable, 2) are clearly aligned development needs or priorities of host countries, 3) create added value/or additionally in the realm of development cooperation. These challenges reflect the urgency for further debates on critical, fundamental and principled questions concerning development finance in practice.