Japan’s Official Development Assistance to Sub-Saharan Africa: Patterns, Dynamics, and Lessons

Abstract

Japan inaugurated an Official Development Assistance (ODA) program to sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) 12 years after its first disbursements to Southeast Asian countries, that is, in 1966. In the five decades since, Japanese ODA to the African region has grown in volume and has become diversified. The history of Japanese ODA in Africa is quite particular—because of the nature of the aid relationship that developed over the decades; for the type of donor that Japan is and the different kinds of foundations that its aid established relative to Africa’s other major donors; and finally, for the diplomatic and discursive, if not directly developmental, ramifications that its aid produced over the years. The showpiece of Japanese assistance to Africa is the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), the multilateral policy dialogue on African development issues, which was launched in 1993. TICAD does not only stand out for its longevity but it is also a unique format in Japan’s larger ODA framework and it has come to profile Japan as a donor in significant ways.