Science Lens

The end of Cold War has taught many countries to prefer promoting an economy development throughout the world rather than prioritizing huge amount of military oriented production. Countries which were affiliated with Socialist Bloc in the Cold War started to reform their economic system and decided to establish intense relationship with countries which implemented open market system. One of former Indonesian diplomats said that: One interesting thing can be observed here is the effects of this change on Japan, the second largest economic power in the world, and her foreign aid or Official Development Assistance (ODA). Before going further, we have to know what does ODA actually mean? ODA is simply an aid given by the members of Development Assistant Committee (DAC) of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development to developing countries. Japan herself was one of the founding members of DAC. Talking about the effectiveness of Japan's ODA, I,once, attended a lecture given by an Islamic expert in Japan. She used to work for a foundation (I can't remember the name) which gave an educational aid to Peshawar, a city in Pakistan. In Peshawar, Japan's ODA was used to build schools and provide teaching materials. She showed us some pictures of those schools and we evidenced that those schools, which were built by Japanese nationals' taxes, have lost most of their chairs, tables, and windowpanes. Moreover, high tuition fees and unqualified teachers who were unable to utilize modern tools, such as computer and overhead projector, just worsened the condition. Why did the government of Japan aid Pakistan? How effective actually Japan's ODA is? Should Japan increase her ODA? The pattern of Japan's ODA is influenced by her relationship with other donators, especially the USA. We can make a link between the pattern of Japan's ODA with the USA-Japan bilateral security relations. The USA expects Japan to pay a compensation for being protected by its nuclear umbrella by economically and financially supporting particular countries which are geopolitically important for the USA, like the USA's backyard (Nicaragua, Panama, Latin America), Philippines and Pakistan. Pakistan is located side by side with Afghanistan, which was invaded by the USSR in the Cold War era. We should also analyze the utilization of Japan's ODA in Indonesia since Indonesia has always been one of the largest recipients of Japan's ODA. Former Indonesian ambassador for Japan said that: Until the year of 2001, Japan had given Indonesia US$ 18.2 billion of loan, US$ 1.3 billion of grant, and US$ 2.4 billion of technical cooperation. All of those aids were distributed through Japan International cooperation Agency (JICA) and Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC). One of the projects funded by Japan’s ODA was Hydroelectric Power and Associated Transmission Line Project in Kotapanjang. The program itself did not gain a huge success, besides it caused an environmental degradation in the area. There was also a sneaking suspicion that there was a practice of fund corruption done by Indonesian local government and Japan’s private companies which won the tender. Like in Indonesia, ODA projects in Brazil also ignored environmental preservation. Therefore, we can conclude that not all of the development aids are effective and used appropriately. Based on the conclusion above, I would like to address another question, should Japan increase her ODA? We have to remember that due to her geographical characteristics, Japanese people are ignorant of what is going on in the world. Moreover, parliamentarians are not interested in foreign policy issues either since they are not related directly to votes. Japan’s foreign policy is determined by Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), which, people said, is not competent in many ways. ODA or economic resources is the only diplomacy means available for Japan since Japan does not possess neither natural resources nor nuclear people, and Japanese people do not have neither language skills nor diplomatic skills. Moreover, Japan is not even a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Indeed, Japan's ODA is the second largest in the world, but how big it actually is? In 2005, the amount of Japan's ODA was 786.1 billion yen and Japan’s population was 128 million people. It means that the amount of ODA given was only equal to the total consumption of coffee by Japanese people per month assuming that each person drinks 1 cup of coffee per day and price of 1 cup of coffee is 200 yen. Moreover, 786.1 billion yen was just 0.91% of Japan's Gross National Income. Indeed, there are problems in the amount, effectiveness, and the appropriateness of Japan’s ODA, but, again, considering that ODA is all what Japan has for diplomacy, Japan should increase its ODA whilst trying to involve Japan's government in monitoring the utilization of the ODA. hey, those ODA came from Japanese nationals' taxes.. What do you think?