Promoting organizational and operational sustainability

The SDGs and sustainability issues related to climate change, nature, human rights, and other global issues are becoming a growing concern internationally, and efforts to address these issues are being intensified.

As an agency that implements ODA programs and projects to help address these global issues, and to support developing countries in achieving the SDGs, JICA has also been strengthening efforts to make itself and the world sustainable over the long term from economic, social, and environmental perspectives. These efforts include, among others, reducing electricity and energy consumption, promoting the wider use of renewable energy, procuring eco-friendly products, and securing healthy working environments.

JICA’s operations come with a conundrum of trade-offs between development and environment and among the 17 goals of the SDGs. For example, infrastructure development may result in the loss of nature. Promotion of rice cultivation may increase greenhouse gas emissions deriving from paddy fields. As the world is facing compounded crises, it is particularly necessary to consider such trade-offs in proposing and providing balanced and optimal cooperation.

With this recognition, JICA places more emphasis on efforts to strike a balance among economic, social, and environmental dimensions and aims to maximize its operational impact in cooperation with developing countries and other diverse partners.

Sustainability management structure

In November 2022, JICA established the Sustainability Committee, chaired by the president, to build a structure for reporting and examining issues related to sustainability management. As part of its efforts to expedite the sustainability management process, JICA set up its Sustainability Management Taskforce in the same month and the Office for Sustainability Management within the General Affairs Department in April 2023 to centrally follow up on sustainability-related discussions and further promote organization-wide actions. JICA will further enhance its sustainability management structure.

Major actions during fiscal 2022
● Published the JICA Sustainability Report in November 2022
● Held Sustainability Committee meetings twice, in January and March 2023
● Issued sustainability relay messages from the Sustainability Committee members to raise awareness within the organization, from March 2023
● Organized sustainability workshops for JICA domestic offices to raise awareness within the organization, in March 2023

In fiscal 2023, JICA will further improve the content of the JICA Sustainability Report. Efforts to this end will include providing information in accordance with international standards, as well as setting targets through back-casting method—an approach that first identifies the desired state in the future and then charts the path to achieve the intended targets, rather than charting the path based on the status quo.

Three pillars of sustainability management (fiscal 2023–2024)