Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo at the 4th International Conference on African Development held in Yokohama City (May 28-30) promised to double Japan’s Official Development Assistance volume for Africa to 200 billion yen within the next five years.
Out of all 53 African countries, 48 are located in sub-Saharan area. Of them, 34 are in a state of absolute poverty where many people are forced to live on less than one dollar a day. To help lower these countries’ poverty level is the most urgent task of all African issues.
Japan’s ODA program, however, is generous only to a handful of countries that are rich in natural resources like oil and rare metals or in which Japanese corporations invest or have business ventures. In contrast, Japan provides less generous assistance to those 34 countries in most need of assistance.
Japan’s total aid for 48 sub-Saharan nations increased to about 2.56 billion dollars (debt relief included) in 2006, which is four times more than that in 2003. But looking at the 34 countries in question, the total amounted to 680 million dollars, only 1.5 times of that in 2003.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in April proposed to reduce the risks and costs that Japanese companies may shoulder in developing states by using such public funds as ODA under the public-private partnership scheme to accelerate the private sector’s growth. As the business world requests, the government is to pour taxpayer money into infrastructure improvements, including roads and harbors, to benefit economic activities.
Late last year, the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) also called for a system to be built up to complement and support private-sector-driven projects by means of yen loans, technical cooperation, and grant aid.
If the government keeps taking its submissive attitude to business circles and large corporations in seeking new business opportunities from their poverty-tackling projects, ODA funds will not be used to reduce poverty though it is truly necessary.
Japan has the lowest level among 22 ODA-donating nations in humanitarian fields, including food aid and development of social infrastructure like education and healthcare, although these are vital measures to relieving poverty.
The government must abandon its focus on short-term profits for large corporations, and instead must make all-out efforts to ease poverty in Africa.
