Japan’s ODA to Developing Countries in the Health Sector: Overall Trend and Future Prospects

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter identifies the overall trends in Japan’s official development assistance (ODA) policies for the health sector in developing countries from 1990 to 2020 and its future post-COVID-19 prospects. Since the end of the Cold War, watershed events have repeatedly changed the landscape of international cooperation in the health sector. Like other international aid donors, Japan has devised priorities and strategies for ODA based on a set of international and domestic factors in a constantly changing world. Numerous studies on Japan’s ODA have examined international and domestic factors that impact the formulation of the country’s aid policy. This chapter aims to add to those studies by combining recent debates on international cooperation and foreign aid, the right to health, and world health system reforms to explore and analyze Japan’s ODA for health in developing countries. The guiding research questions were as follows: What were the major trends in Japan’s ODA policies in the health sector from 1990 to 2020? Which international health debates and international cooperation factors exerted influence on those trends? What are the prospects of Japan’s ODA given the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts? The research relied on primary sources, specifically Japan’s ODA official documents and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) ODA quantitative databases, as well as secondary sources, such as academic literature on international cooperation and foreign aid for health. Our preliminary findings revealed that Japan’s ODA in the health sector from 1990 to 2020 centered on two main axes: infectious diseases and maternal and child health, both of which are oriented toward strengthening the healthcare system. Given this goal, it seems relevant to consider that Japan’s health system is based on the assumption of the need to provide universal health coverage, a concept currently supported by the World Health Organization (WHO), in contrast to the universal health system, and that the implications of this choice on Japan’s ODA and developing countries’ health policies are yet to be fully understood. The COVID-19 pandemic has put substantial pressure on health systems globally and international cooperation for health; thus, it has the potential to affect and even change Japan’s ODA for the health sector in developing countries.