JAPAN

POPULATION AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH ASSISTANCE
OVERALL ASSESSMENT

Japan’s standing as the number one donor to UNFPA and IPPF is the most important aspect of its role as a population donor. Japan’s consistently high core contributions to these two major international population organizations support important reproductive health initiatives worldwide. However, Japan lags behind some other major donors in the overall level of population assistance it provides.

Japan has been striving to increase both its importance and effectiveness as a bilateral population donor. However, the limited reproductive health expertise in Japan’s bilateral aid program represents a major constraint to success in this area. Recent closer collaboration between Japan’s bilateral aid agency and the largest Japanese NGO involved in international population programs is a positive step toward addressing this shortcoming. Japan is also engaged in joint initiatives with the U.S. bilateral population program; however, Japan and the United States have very different styles of development assistance, and these efforts have received mixed reviews. Japanese bilateral "population" projects generally do not emphasize family planning services, and at least in some cases appear indistinguishable from more general health sector projects.

Overall, Japan’s contributions fall far short of the increases required to meet its fair share of the ICPD year 2000 goal for population assistance, given the large size of its economy. However, the advocacy efforts of Japanese NGOs have succeeded in establishing a high profile for global population issues. Despite anticipated cuts in future foreign aid levels, there is still scope within the very large Japanese aid program to expand the tiny share allocated to international population assistance.

1 Development Assistance: Policy and Funding

Despite its standing as the world’s largest donor, Japan’s development assistance represented only 0.22 percent of GNP in 1997, well below the average for the donor countries. Moreover, Japan’s preeminence as a donor is currently in jeopardy as domestic economic problems have caused a downturn in Japanese overseas aid allocations.

In 1993, Japan overtook the United States as the largest development assistance donor, providing a total of $11.3 billion in aid. However, in 1996, total aid levels fell 35 percent to $9.4 billion, down from $14.5 billion the previous year. Most of this decrease reflects large loan repayments to Japan and declining Japanese contributions to multilateral institutions; bilateral commitments actually increased 17 percent. The Japanese government is planning deeper cuts in the aid program over the period 1998 to 2000, as a result of a government-wide effort to cut all public spending by 10 percent annually.

Japan’s aid program is administered through a "four-Ministry system." This system involves the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, and the Economic Planning Agency. Implementing institutions include the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the major technical cooperation agency, and the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund, the bilateral loan agency. Technical and financial cooperation activities are supervised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Finance respectively. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also acts as the primary coordinating ministry for all Japanese development aid.

During the 1990s the Japanese government has sought to increase the effectiveness of its aid program. Japanese development assistance has historically emphasized large infrastructure projects, loans rather than grants and a geographic focus on Asia. Japan’s Official Development Assistance Charter of 1992 responds to criticism of these aspects of Japanese aid by setting out a reform policy aimed at improving the effectiveness and allocation of development assistance. The 1992 Charter remains the official aid policy document to date.

Japan has achieved the goal of devoting at least 20 percent of aid resources to the social sectors, as recommended at the 1995 World Summit on Social Development. Indeed, Japan’s spending on social and administrative infrastructure in developing countries has increased very significantly, from 3 percent of total aid in 1975-76 to 24 percent in 1995-96. Still, a lack of technical expertise within the aid bureaucracy has constrained Japan’s ability to more effectively program funding for social sector projects.

Japan has been less successful in addressing the criticism that it favors Asian nations in the allocation of its development assistance resources. Critics argue that this practice allocates aid resources to higher-income developing countries rather than those in greatest need. In 1996, Mexico was the only country outside Asia among the top 10 recipients of Japanese aid.

The Japanese public has generally been supportive of foreign aid, but current economic problems may be eroding this support. A survey conducted in 1996 found that 47 percent of the public favored maintaining aid at the current level, while 33 percent favored increasing aid levels. By 1997, another poll found that while 41 percent of the public supported development assistance, 47 percent felt domestic concerns should take precedence over needs overseas.

2 The Policy Environment for International Population Assistance

The policy environment in Japan has encouraged increased Japanese support for international population assistance. The increased focus on the social sectors and an emphasis on closer coordination with the United States have also helped to increase attention to population assistance. In 1993, the Japanese and U.S. governments initiated the U.S.-Japan Common Agenda for Cooperation in Global Perspective as a mechanism for cooperating on technical and foreign assistance issues under the U.S.-Japan Framework for a New Economic Partnership.

Under the Common Agenda, Japan pledged to give $3 billion through a Global Issues Initiative for Population and AIDS over a seven-year period, 1993-2000. At a recent meeting marking the fifth anniversary of the Common Agenda, the health working group reiterated the importance of a focus on population and recommended that reproductive health issues be addressed more directly and systematically under Common Agenda programs.

The Global Issues Initiative includes both "direct" and "indirect" population aid. The Japanese aid program defines direct population aid as support for family planning, and maternal and child health services, related information, education and communication (IEC) programs, and demographic and policy analysis. Indirect population aid includes primary health care, basic education, women’s empowerment and HIV/AIDS prevention and monitoring. Japan’s women in development initiative, announced at the 1995 Beijing international conference on women, and its recent commitment to increasing NGO involvement in project implementation are additional policies that are supportive of programming in population and reproductive health.

More recently, Japan’s economic troubles have made population assistance more vulnerable. In 1997-98, in response to a directive from the Japanese parliament requiring all government ministries to cut public spending by 10 percent, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs proposed deep cuts in its voluntary contributions to UN organizations, including UNFPA, causing concern among advocates of population assistance. However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ultimately chose to maintain, in Japanese yen, its assessed contributions to UN agencies, its voluntary contributions to UNFPA, UNICEF and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), as well as the bilateral aid budget.

This policy reversal followed strong appeals to the Japanese government from the heads of the various UN special funds and programs, and domestic pressure from population NGOs such as the Japanese Organization for International Cooperation in Family Planning (JOICFP) and a newly established NGO, 2050, involved in population advocacy. Advocates for maintaining support to UNFPA argued that Japan’s leadership as a population donor was important to its standing in the world community, and that cuts in population aid would have a severe negative impact on maternal and child health in developing countries.

3 Trends in Funding for Population Assistance

Overall Funding Levels:

Population assistance from Japan has increased over the past decade, but Japan still lags behind the other major economic powers in the aid it allocates for population programs. Population assistance provided by Japan increased over 70 percent between 1987 and 1995. (Data on Japanese population assistance for 1996 were not available at the time of writing, and the discussion of funding is therefore limited to data for 1995.) In 1987, Japan provided $54 million in total resources for population programs; by 1995 the Japanese contribution had grown to $93.7 million, or seven percent of total global population assistance. Despite this large increase, Japan still gives considerably less in total population aid than other major economic powers such as the United States and Germany, which gave $667 million and $145 million respectively in 1995.

Japan also performs poorly on indicators of the extent to which it bears its fair share of the burden for population assistance relative to other donor countries. In 1995, Japan gave less than 0.65 percent of general development aid to population assistance, compared with 9 percent from the United States and 1.9 percent from Germany. Japan also falls short in its contributions to population programs relative to its large economy, giving $18 per million dollars of GNP in 1995–a level lower than some of the smallest donors. In comparison, the United States gave $92 in population assistance per million dollars of GNP in 1995, and Germany gave $60.

Multilateral Funding:

Japan’s strength in supporting population programs has always been through the multilateral channel. Despite its poor comparative performance in population assistance in terms of total volume and burden sharing, Japan has consistently been a top donor to UNFPA. Since 1995, Japan’s contribution to UNFPA’s core budget has topped $50 million a year. In 1997, the Japanese contribution amounted to $54.4 million–19 percent of UNFPA’s total income from the major donor countries. While Japan maintained its 1998 pledge in yen at the 1997 level, the value of its contribution will drop significantly in dollars due to the lower value of the yen in relation to the U.S. dollar.

Bilateral Funding:

The volume of bilateral population aid from Japan has almost doubled during the 1990s. In 1990, Japan gave $7.7 million bilaterally; by 1995 it was allocating close to $16 million through this channel. A greater proportion of funds can be expected to flow through the bilateral channel in the future as Japan improves its capacity for project development and technical support.

Funding for NGOs:

Japan is a major donor to IPPF and has recently also begun funding population-related programs implemented by Japanese NGOs in developing countries. Japanese funding for NGO population programs has increased from about $15 million in 1990 to $22.5 million in 1995. This funding primarily reflects Japan’s contributions to IPPF over this period. The Japanese contribution accounted for 22 percent of IPPF’s total budget in 1997, making Japan the single largest donor to the organization. Japan has only recently begun directly funding Japanese and developing country NGOs to implement reproductive health projects in aid recipient countries. A number of such initiatives are in the pipeline and will receive funding in the 1997-98 fiscal year.

Japan also provides funding through its embassies for local NGO projects in the areas of population, AIDS, women in development and the environment. This decentralized program disburses grants to a maximum of $100,000 based on applications from local organizations. In 1995, grants disbursed through this program worldwide amounted to about $1.1 million.

Geographic Priorities:

The largest projects supported by Japanese assistance are in Asia. Japan’s Global Issues Initiative, launched in 1994, identifies 12 priority countries for development assistance, grant aid and technical cooperation in the areas of population and AIDS. These include 6 nations in Asia (Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand), 5 in Africa (Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal and Tanzania), and 1 in Latin America (Mexico). Japanese aid officials recently claimed that Japan has initiated population and reproductive health projects in all priority countries and provided about $2 billion in assistance between 1994 and 1998. However, some critics assert this figure includes non-population related activities and significantly overstates real levels of population assistance.

In 1996, Japan supported bilateral family planning and reproductive health initiatives in 10 nations: Argentina, Cambodia, Kenya, Mexico, Nepal, the Philippines, Tanzania, Thailand, Tunisia and Turkey. More recently, JICA has initiated two technical cooperation projects in Bangladesh and Vietnam in collaboration with JOICFP.

Areas of Program Emphasis:

Japanese-funded initiatives generally integrate family planning and reproductive health services into maternal and child health programs. Given restricted domestic family planning options (no hormonal methods are approved for use in Japan and condoms are the most readily available and widely used contraceptive method), policy makers reportedly prefer to combine overseas family planning efforts with broader maternal and child health services, an approach that has strong support within Japan. Traditionally, Japan has been reluctant to directly fund service delivery projects, perhaps due to lack of technical expertise in the bilateral aid program, and has relied on its funding to UNFPA and IPPF to support family planning services.

5 Technical Capacity

Staffing:

Japan’s bilateral development assistance agencies are generally known for having very limited expert staff across a broad range of development disciplines, including population and reproductive health. JICA’s main approach to staffing population project teams is to convene a committee of national experts from the government and private sector. Teams for population projects are often lead by senior physicians rather than public health or population experts. As a result of this reliance on outside experts, staff within JICA have not built up experience in population project implementation. JICA has only recently begun to address this shortcoming in the population field by relying more heavily on technical resources available through JOICFP.

Technical Expertise of Collaborating Institutions:

Japan has begun to use domestic NGOs to supplement the slim technical assistance resources at JICA in the population field. The primary Japanese NGO involved in project implementation is JOICFP. The organization’s community-based approach has allowed JICA to diversify its traditional medical orientation and give greater emphasis to public health concerns and local capacity building.

JOICFP has a thirty-year record of project implementation in developing countries. Since 1968, the organization has played a dual role as an advocate for population issues and funding and as an executing agency for international projects. JOICFP’s technical expertise initially reflected a narrow focus on the integration of family planning and parasite control efforts. However, over the years the organization’s breadth of expertise in reproductive health and family planning has grown. JOICFP’s staff of about 22 now acts as a technical resource to JICA in the areas of community-based reproductive health, adolescent health, HIV/AIDS prevention and women’s income generation activities.

JOICFP is currently involved in numerous population-related activities in collaboration with JICA. It is conducting a mid-term review of the Global Issues Initiative in 1997-98, and has been selected by JICA to lead a team to Vietnam to implement a new reproductive health project. JICA is also funding two developing country NGOs with longstanding ties to JOICFP, the Family Planning Association of Bangladesh (FPAB) and the Mexican Foundation for Family Planning (MEXFAM).