Japan's ODA Programs

Overview

Grant aid is the provision of funds without obliging the developing country recipients to repay them. This type of aid is principally given to developing countries with relatively low per capita incomes. A specific country's eligibility for grant aid is determined after conducting needed surveys and taking its economic and social development situation, its development requirements, its bilateral relations with Japan, and the nature of the aid request into consideration.

The sectors covered by grant aid are basically areas of low profitability, where loans would be difficult to obtain, and address such basic human needs (BHN) as medicinal and health care, hygiene and sanitation, water supply, primary and secondary education, environmental protection, rural and agricultural development, etc., as well as human resource development.

Grant Aid Schemes Extended to Sudan

1. Grant Aid for General Projects: Grant aid for general projects is grant aid in a wide variety of sectors. The relevant sectors are classified broadly as medical care and health, education and research, agriculture, improvement of living standards and the environment, and telecommunications and transportation. However, even in areas where primarily ODA loan assistance has been applicable, such as the construction of roads, bridges, ports, telecommunications, and other economic infrastructure, Japan is taking into account the deterioration of economic infrastructure in developing countries, especially in the LLDCs, in an effort to adjust the application of grant aid according to individual countries' circumstances, and as a result, the sectors to which general grant aid is applicable are diversifying.

2. Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Projects: Grant assistance for grassroots human security projects is a scheme of assistance in response to requests from developing countries' local public bodies, medical institutions, and NGOs and similar groups active in developing countries. It was difficult to deal with such small scale projects via grant aid to be arranged between central governments. Grant assistance for grassroots human security projects is administered swiftly and appropriately by Japanese embassies and consulate-generals, whose staff are well acquainted with the economic and social conditions in each developing country, which allows Japan to respond better to the diversity of needs in developing countries. For further information and application procedure for  Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Projects.

3. Food Aid (KR): Food aid is given to developing countries facing imminent food shortages; it funds the purchase of wheat, rice, maize, and other staple grains. Japan's food aid is carried out under the Food Aid Convention obligating Japan to contribute at least 300,000 tons of food aid every year

4. Grant Assistance for Underprivileged Farmers (2KR): Grant assistance for underprivileged farmers is designed to assist developing countries striving to achieve food self-sufficiency to carry out their food production augmentation plans. It provides the financial assistance needed to purchase fertilizer, pesticides, farm machinery, and other agricultural equipment.

5. Emergency Grant Aid: This scheme can be devided into three fields below;

Disaster relief
Disaster relief is humanitarian financial aid given in emergencies to assist victims of natural disasters, refugees, and displaced persons fleeing civil wars or other disturbances overseas. In some cases, funds to carry out relief operations for the victims are given directly to the governments of affected countries; in other cases, they are given to the World Food Programme (WFP), the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), or other agencies of the United Nations, or to the Japanese Red Cross Society, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), or some other international aid-implementing organizations. When a disaster strikes anywhere in the world, Japan attempts immediately to assess comprehensively the extent of the disaster and the need for Japanese aid based on information from local Japanese embassy staff or from international organizations or based on requests from the government of the stricken country or from international organizations. A decision is then made on what and how much should be given. Implementation of disaster relief is a matter of great urgency and, unlike procedures for other types of grant aid, it is decided and implemented via extremely simplified procedures.

Assistance for democratization
Since FY 1995, this type of aid has been given to recipient governments or through international organizations in charge of implementing elections and consists of providing funds for ballot boxes, polling booths, ballot forms, etc., needed to ensure the success of programs to promote greater democracy in developing countries through elections.

Support for reconstruction and development
Since FY1996, Japan has lent support to reconstruction and development through financial aid to international organizations or through contributions to trust funds set up by or within international organizations. The object is to give countries striving to rebuild after a regional conflict has ended and peace has been restored a firm foothold on which to rebuild themselves in the interim period leading to stabilization of the domestic situation. This eventually permits normal bilateral ties of economic cooperation to be reestablished subsequently.

Overview

Technical cooperation is aid whose aim is to develop the human resources that lay the foundations of developing countries' efforts to build their nations. The object is, by transferring Japan's technology and knowledge to "counterparts"-people playing leading roles in their respective fields in recipient countries-to spread that technology widely in those developing countries and contribute to their economic and social development. Presently, technical cooperation extends over a wide variety of fields, from BHN (Basic Human Needs), such as providing access to health and medical care and drinking water, to high-level cooperation in transferring computer technology and in drafting legislation and establishing state institutions. Technical cooperation is based on agreements between the Japanese and recipient governments and is carried out by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). 

Categories of Technical Cooperation Extended to Sudan

1. Training Program: Accepting trainees from developing countries is one of the most basic types of technical cooperation. Promising trainees destined to play important roles in developing countries' nation-building efforts are invited to Japan or to certain other developing countries for training. This training gives them specialized knowledge and technology in a wide variety of fields, ranging from public administration to agriculture, forestry, fisheries, mining, manufacturing, energy, health and medical care, transportation, and telecommunications. In recent years, training has also covered such areas as the transition to a market economy and the establishment of juridical institutions.

2. Youth Invitation Program (Friendship Program for the 21st Century): In 1984, the Youth Invitation Program began with an aim of inviting developing countries' junior leaders in their country's nation-building efforts to visit Japan for one month, during which they receive training in their specialty and homestay in different parts of Japan; through these broad-based contacts with Japanese connected with the program, these young people deepen their understanding of Japan and forge friendship with the Japanese people. Participants, both men and women, range in age from 18 to 35; they are picked by recommendation of their government, and belong to different professional categories, including public officials, educators, farmers, urban workers, and other groups.
    

3. Expert Dispatch Program: Japan's program for dispatching experts to developing countries, where they carry out technical cooperation in a variety of fields as technical advisers mainly in government organizations, is one of the few most basic types of technical cooperation, together with the trainee acceptance program. These experts provide guidance in an extremely wide range of fields from technical advice on agriculture, mining and manufacturing, transportation, electricity and communications to advice on improving legal systems and formulating countermeasures for environmental problems and policies for countries in transition to market economies in recent years.
    

4. Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV) Program: The Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteer (JOCV) assignment program recruits young people, between the ages of 20 and 39, and trains and sends them to developing countries to live with local people and transfer their technology through aid at the grassroots level. These activities are carried out based on specific agreements between the governments of Japan and the recipient country regarding the assignments of overseas cooperation volunteers. The work of these volunteers differs characteristically from other forms of technical cooperation in that it is voluntary and that participants are recruited from among the general public.
    

5. Technical Cooperation Project: Technical cooperation that is implemented on a planned basis over a period of several years (usually five) and as a combination in one project of the three basic types of technical cooperation-namely trainees, dispatch of experts, and provision of equipment and machinery-is called Technical Cooperation Project (TCP). In recent years, there have been many cases of linkage of TCP with grant aid, in which Japanese grant aid is used to fund the construction of facilities that are then used as the base for carrying out TCP. TCP is presently being carried out in cooperation projects directed at social development (e.g., road and transportation, telecommunications, education), health and medical care, population control and family planning, agriculture, forestry, and fisheries, and industrial development.
    

6. Development Studies: Development studies often gather information for official development planning centering on the building of roads, ports, electric power systems, telecommunications, sewerage and water supply, agricultural development, and other economic and social infrastructure. At other times, development studies compile the basic data needed as the basis for such planning; the resulting reports are submitted to developing countries' governments, which also use them in social and economic development. Development study reports provide important guidelines in the drafting of development policy by developing country governments, which also use them effectively as sources of basic data in requests for financial and technical assistance to implement development plans.

The Japanese government has programs enabling relief teams, emergency supplies, and financial aid to be sent rapidly overseas upon request by a country where a major natural disaster or other calamity has struck. One of these programs offering humanitarian assistance to other countries is called Japan Disaster Relief Team. The rescue teams help to find victims and save lives; its medical teams administer emergency medical care; its expert teams give advice to officials of stricken countries regarding disaster response and reconstruction; Japan Self Defense Force units provide medical care, water purification and supply, transport, and other logistics. Any of these teams can be sent separately or in combination with others.

Emergency supplies are provided whenever overseas disaster victims require them in an emergency; to enable materiel to reach victims as quickly as possible. Financial grant aid is provided for a stricken country's government to carry out disaster relief.

ODA loans (yen loans) extend funds for development for long periods at low interest to developing countries. In providing these loans, Japan takes into consideration the stages of development which vary widely, from the LLDCs to "semi-developed" countries that are midway between developing and developed country status. Depending on the developing country's economic circumstances and creditworthiness, the loan conditions (interest rates, term) are changed to suit the country's ability to repay the loan and its economic conditions.

Though economic infrastructure is the main sector in which yen loans are used, an increasing amount of yen loans are extended for social infrastructure such as sewerage and water systems, health and medical care, and education.

Aid provided through international organizations has certain advantages over bilateral assistance, including the mobilization of international networks enabling different parties to take best advantage of their specialized knowledge and experience. Given the growing importance of efforts not only in the conventional areas of economic and social development, but also the area of to global-scale issues such as the environment, narcotics, refugees, and infectious diseases, these international organizations have a major role to play. Assistance from the neutral stance of the U.N. agencies will also be vital in establishing the good governance on which development needs to be founded.

Japan supports the activities of international organizations by providing personnel, such as well as by making assessed and voluntary contributions, and making investments.

In recent years, the United Nations and other international organizations have been working on aid coordination with donor countries as a means of improving aid efficiency. As part of this trend, Japan is seeking to strengthen multilateral-bilateral cooperation, whereby bilateral aid by donor countries and multilateral aid by international organizations compliment each other's resources in order to improve aid efficiency.