Title: Japan as Top Donor: The Challenge of Implementing Software Aid Policy
Abstract: JAPANESE OFFICIAL DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE (ODA) is undergoing a major J transformation in the post-cold war era. Foreign is no longer an instrument of bipolar international competition. However, despite expectations of a peace dividend, total flows have not increased. On the contrary, the total supply of foreign spent by the twenty-one member states of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) stagnated at about $60 billion per year from 1992 to 1994.1 Recession and increasing United Nations obligations for peacekeeping partly account for this, preventing further growth in ODA expenditures. Amidst these trends, Japan has become the top ODA donor country (see figure 1). As top donor, Japan faces both new opportunities and challenges in this uncertain international environment. A vacuum left by the withdrawal of other major donors offersJapan the opportunity to assume a leadership role in defining a new paradigm for development assistance. The recent promotion of aid can be seen as a strategic shift in Japan's ODA. Software is defined as assistance for human resource development and institutional building 2 in economic and social development. It involves providing information and knowledge, often in forms such as training and policy advice, as opposed to hardware aid, involving provision of physical construction and equipment. This new policy direction to promote software can be seen as an instrument forJapan to express a vision of development assistance in the post-cold war era to the international community.
Publication Year: 1996
Publication Date: 1996-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 17
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