Whither Japanese Foreign Aid?

Abstract

Japan’s Foreign Aid: Old Continuities and New Directions, edited by David Arase. New York: Routledge, 2005, 336 pp., $132.00 (hardcover ISBN 0415359996) Japan’s Foreign Aid: Old Continuities and New Directions provides a detailed account and comprehensive analysis of Japan’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) through the comparative perspective of other donor countries (the UK, Sweden, Australia, the US, Canada, and Korea and the World Bank) as well as recipient countries (Pakistan, China, South and Southeast Asia, the Pacific region, and Thailand). Throughout, chapters within this book question whether Japan’s ODA can fit the ‘contemporary global trend toward poverty-oriented international development assistance’ with satisfactory quality and effectiveness. The book’s historical and political analyses of Japan’s ODA are useful for understanding what has formed Japan’s aid philosophy, actual policymaking, and implementation of ODA. The editor, David Arase, carefully deals with these issues in his introductory and concluding chapters by suggesting many signs of improvement in Japan’s ODA policy. This book, however, seems to have been concluded before the recent development of cooperation in the social sector and at grassroots levels and a series of radical changes that occurred in aid administration. Regrettably, its emphasis on structural inertia and inadequate resources perhaps obscure the broader discussion of whether the social sector and governance focus, which is the standardized norm of ODA for alleviating poverty, are truly sufficient for achieving development objectives.